bound; governed by fate or extremely likely to occur.
"Face it, Marco. You and I are bound to one another. Even after all this time, even despite the consequences of our love, you can't keep yourself away from me-and neither can I."
R O M E S S A. Too Much of a Good Thing Can't Be Good for Long
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"Can I open my eyes now?"
"Just a few more moments."
"Okay—what about now?"
Marco smiled at Romessa, whose eyes he covered with his warm fingers as he carefully guided her out of an elevator. It was a Saturday morning, and the sun had risen only hours ago—still, Romessa was beautiful in her silk pajamas, wearing old Nike sneakers on her small feet. "Okay," breathed Marco, slowly removing his hands. "Open them." It'd been a week since the match against Bayern; a week since they'd said I love you to one another—and what a hectic week it'd been.
Following Christian Seifert's sudden decision to retire, William had sent in a two weeks' notice of resignation from his position as a coach at Borussia Dortmund. After leaving Dortmund, Romessa's boyfriend would formally become the CEO of the Bundesliga—and she knew he had every intention of keeping her by his side. The news hadn't been made public yet, as Christian hadn't formally retired. Romessa planned on telling Marco everything when she saw him at the work on Monday—but instead he'd showed up to her doorstep earlier that morning, demanding that she leave with him to an unspecified location. He had a surprise for her—a gift, he'd declared—and he wanted it to be the first thing she saw that day.
Romessa opened her eyes and looked around for a few moments, then felt a small smile creep onto her lips. "Marco," she breathed, as the blonde moved in front of her. "Are we where I think we are?"
"Well, where do you think we are?"
"I think we're in the apartment I spent almost every night with you at when I was eighteen." Romessa continued to look around, feeling her chest grow fuzzy with nostalgia as she approached the floor-to-ceiling window. She turned to face Marco, who had a sheepish smile on his face as he held his hands behind his back. "Am I right?"
"Yes," nodded Marco. He took her hand in his, then guided them to the black marble island in the kitchen. Everything was just as Romessa remembered it being—her old scrunchie was even still in the bowl on the coffee table. "This was where we first touched," he spoke, moving behind her. He kissed the back of her neck, then stretched his own neck in order to place his lips on the corner of her mouth. "You have no clue how afraid I was," he whispered.
Romessa smiled. "What did you think of me, back then?"
"I just remember trying to suppress everything," admitted Marco. "You were the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen, and it didn't make any sense. To this day, I've never seen beauty like yours. All my life I was taught that beautiful was conventional. Light eyes, light hair, stupid stuff like that." He stepped back, then shrugged a shoulder. "But you proved that wrong. Your eyes were dark and mysterious, and you were so quiet. I was drawn to you, but I knew I shouldn't have been. I would look at you and I would feel my heart pounding faster than ever, but my mind would try to deceive me—it would convince me that I just missed Scarlett, and that's why I reacted to you that way. But when you touched me, I knew." Marco intertwined their fingers, then held them up. "And you," he whispered, "What did you think?"
