Infinite Cashback: My Wealth Rebate System

Sarah stepped inside and closed the door behind her. She didn’t say anything right away. She crossed the room and pulled the chair out from beside his desk and set it a few feet from the bed. She sat down. Jason stayed where he was on the edge of the bed.

Neither of them spoke for a while.

He watched her instead. She had her hands folded in her lap and her eyes fixed somewhere on the floor between them. Her jaw was tight in the way it got when she was building up to something. He recognized that look now. He’d seen it last night right before she bolted for the door.

She’s working up to it.

He didn’t rush her. He just waited, letting the quiet stretch, the same patience he’d learned to offer her at the door two nights before.

The apartment was quiet around them. Somewhere outside a car passed, headlights sweeping briefly across the wall before fading again, and Sarah’s eyes tracked the motion without really seeing it, still deep in whatever she was building toward.

Finally she looked up.

"I want to explain yesterday," she said. "Properly. Not the version I gave you at the door."

"Okay."

"I wasn’t upset about the kiss." She said it fast like she needed to get the important part out before the rest of the sentence could talk her out of it. "I liked it. That’s not the problem. The problem is I liked it so much that I didn’t know what to do with myself and my brain just short circuited and the only functioning instinct left was run."

Jason almost smiled at that. "That’s a very specific malfunction."

"I’m a very specific person." She let out a small breath that wasn’t quite a laugh. "I panicked. That’s it. That’s the whole embarrassing truth. I wasn’t running from you. I was running from how much I wanted to stay."

He sat with that for a second, turning it over slowly the way he turned everything over, checking it against what he’d already assumed and finding it didn’t match at all. Something in his chest loosened that he hadn’t fully realized was still tight.

"I’m sorry," she added quietly. "For making you sit here all night thinking you did something wrong."

"It’s fine."

"It’s not fine. I saw your face right before I left."

"I said it’s fine." He kept his voice even. "I spent most of last night convinced I’d ruined something. So hearing it wasn’t me is actually a relief. I was ready to file myself under the guy who ruins good things in record time."

She winced slightly. "That bad?"

"Pretty bad."

"I really am sorry."

"I know." He held her gaze. "You don’t have to keep apologizing. I get it now."

She studied him for a moment longer, like she was checking whether he actually meant that or was just saying it to end the conversation faster, and whatever she found in his face seemed to settle something in her own shoulders, the tension there easing slightly for the first time since she’d walked in.

The silence that followed wasn’t the same kind from before. It sat differently in the room. Heavier in a way that had nothing to do with guilt anymore, something else filling the space where the apology had been.

Sarah looked at him for a long moment. Then she stood up.

Jason watched her cross the small distance between the chair and the bed without quite understanding what was about to happen until it was already happening. She sat down beside him. Not a careful distance away.

Not the six inches that never survived a single night at his apartment. She sat close enough that her shoulder pressed directly against his.

Okay. His pulse picked up without permission. That’s new.

Neither of them said anything about it. She just sat there. Her shoulder against his arm. Her hands back in her lap.

Staring straight ahead at nothing in particular the same way she had from the chair a minute ago, except now the distance between them had simply stopped existing without either of them announcing the decision out loud.

Jason kept his eyes forward too even though every part of his attention had narrowed down to the exact point where her shoulder met his, the warmth of it registering far more than it had any reasonable business to for something as simple as contact through two layers of fabric.

Don’t read into this. He tried the thought out and immediately didn’t believe it. You are absolutely reading into this. There is nothing else to read.

He felt her shift slightly beside him. Not pulling away. If anything closer, the small motion enough to close whatever fraction of space had still technically existed between their arms.

"Jason."

He turned his head toward her.

Sarah kissed him.

It landed different this time. Slower. No panic underneath it. No hand coming up between them the way it had last night. Her fingers found the collar of his shirt instead and held on, steady, deliberate, nothing accidental about the way she’d closed the distance this time.

For a second Jason forgot to actually kiss her back he was so busy processing the fact that she wasn’t stopping. Then his hand found her jaw and he caught up fast, the surprise giving way to something more certain the longer it went on.

She didn’t pull away.

Seconds passed and she still didn’t pull away. If anything she leaned further into it her free hand sliding up to rest against his chest right over where his heart had abandoned any pretense of staying calm, and Jason was fairly sure she could feel exactly how unsteady it had become, though neither of them stopped long enough to mention it.

She’s not running this time. The thought arrived clear and steady underneath everything else happening. She actually stayed.

Sarah broke the kiss just enough to speak against his mouth her breath uneven. "I’m not leaving tonight."

"Okay."

"I mean it."

"I heard you the first time."

She let out something between a laugh and a breath, the sound warm against his mouth, and pulled him back in before he could say anything else. This time neither of them was thinking about doors or excuses or roommates who may or may not exist.

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