This one with my dad is far from easy, but maybe if we do it more often, it’ll become easier, just like moving forward in my life has become.

* * *

When I get back to Micha’s house, it’s past nine o’clock. The air is deathly cold and seeping into the quiet house. I kick my boots off at the back door, hang up my jacket on the coatrack, and then pad through the kitchen to Micha’s bedroom, only to find the room dark and him asleep in the bed, his face snuggled into the pillow with the blanket over him.

I flip the lamp on, slip my jeans off, and then quickly hop under the blanket with him. He stirs as I nuzzle up to him and then he tenses when my chilled skin touches his.

“Are you awake?” I ask as I comb my fingers through his soft hair.

He lets out a sigh as his hands find my hips beneath the blanket. “I was having such a good dream, where you snuck into my room and started touching me, but not my hair. It was a much lower place. I think you should try to find it.”

I smile as my fingers drift down his firm chest. “I have to tell you something.”

He eyes open, and they’re red and full of sleepiness. “Should I be worried?”

I shake my head. “Not at all.”

He slides an arm over my stomach and pulls me closer to him. “Tell me then.”

“I want to go on the road with you,” I say and as soon as I say it, I know it’s the right choice. For us. “I’ll take the rest of my classes online and quit my job.”

He’s silent and full of surprise. It takes him a moment to answer and when he speaks his voice is off pitch. “Are you sure you want to quit your job?”

“I want to be with you all the time. And I want to watch you play and just draw things that mean stuff to me, like you and I and the places we’ve been, all our spots, like the lake and your room, the tree you used to climb into my window… the one that always brought you to me,” I say with honesty. “If I could picture my life being any way, that’s how I’d picture it. It’s what I want to do.”

His expression is unreadable as he searches my eyes for the truth. “Are you sure? Because you have a few weeks to think about it and I want you to be absolutely sure. I never want you to do anything you don’t want to do. I—”