The heat in her gaze shifts. I wonder if she’s finally ready to give me a chance. I’m not fooled. She’s affectionate, she’s kind, she’s generous, but that doesn’t mean she’s all in, that doesn’t mean she’s saying, ‘Let’s do this.’
Not yet.
“Em. I knowyou.”
“Do you?” It’s a challenge.
“Yes. I know your heart. I know your dreams. I know what you’re afraid of.” I hold her gaze. “I know I can make you happy.”
She shakes her head. “I don’t know that.”
“And, Ember?—”
“We should go,” she whispers, glancing toward the window, where the snow has thinned to lazy flurries. “The storm’s over.”
“You know me,” I continue, like she didn’t speak. “You know when I’m feeling insecure. You know when I’m angry, even if I don’t show it. You know…me.”
She licks her lips and then worries her upper lip with her teeth.
“We were friends that year when we were lovers.” I refuse to let this moment slide without doing everything I can to convince her, show her what we could be.
I let her out of my embrace and lace my fingers with hers, not freeing her from me but giving her distance, a choice. “We’ll go, but not back to where we were.”
“No, we won’t,” she agrees slowly, as if weighing her words. “We’ll move forward.”
I kiss her lips softly. “Good girl.”
She blushes. It goes straight to my cock.
I want her. I want to make love to her. I want intimacy with her. Connection.
But I also know that it will take the time it takes—because my Ember is a careful person. She doesn’t justjump into things. She likes to measure. She likes to collate data. She likes to understand herself better before she makes a decision.
How on earth did I ever think that this careful, deliberate woman was immature? Well, it speaks to my lack of emotional maturity at the time.
I mistook depth for doubt. Caution for fragility.
I see it now—her way of processing, of loving, is rooted in strength. She doesn’t move slowly because she’s uncertain. She moves slowly because she intends to stay.
And I want to be the man who earns that kind of forever.
The trail is half-buried when we step outside. The world wiped clean by the snow. The air is cleaner, as if the mountain had taken a deep breath, and exhaled everything but what truly mattered.
Ember skis ahead of me, and even in all her layers, she moves with a quiet grace that calls to me.
She stops once we reach the ridge, looking out over the valley. The sun’s low behind the peaks, painting the snow in lavender and gold. I glide up next to her.
“You know the biggest change I see in you?” she asks all of a sudden.
I look at her, at this woman I used to know betterthan anyone, and still do in all the ways that mean anything. “Tell me.”
“You used to think being in control meant being safe. That if you managed everything, if you anticipated risk, you could avoid pain.”
“I didn’t avoid it,” I admit. “I brought it on in spades. I lost you. That hurt. I hurt you. That hurts worse.” I look at her as she watches the view in front of us; endless snow-capped peaks.
“I worry that I’m weak if I take you back.”
I’m relieved at her words. She wasn’t rejecting me. She was contemplating us—being herself—as she processed the new information she now has about me.
