“No,” he grumps, which is particularly adorable on a man with more tattoos than digits. “When are you going back to Mexico?”
“I don’t know. Not anytime soon.”
“Really?” he asks, his head popping up. “Isn’t there a limit to how long you can stay?”
“I suppose if I were here legally, that would be a concern of mine.”
“Javier! If they catch you, you won’t ever be allowed back in!”
I grin, chuckling to myself. He shoves my shoulder. “It’s not funny. Not even a little bit.”
I capture his precious face in my hands and kiss his forehead. “I am far too precious a resource for Wimberley to ever allow me to be arrested for overstaying my visa. They’re working on dual citizenship for me. I’ve been told not to ask for the details.”
Relief floods his face, and he collapses back on the pillow. Then sits upright. “But you do have to go back at some point, don’t you?”
“I do need to be able to see my family regularly, yes.”
His jaw shifts from side to side. “How long will you be gone?”
“I don’t know. Do you imagine my family would let me visit them without bringing you?”
“Oh.”
I know it’s the newness and intensity causing the concern in his eyes, so I quickly reassure him.
Looking deeper into his eyes, I simply tell the truth. “I have no plans to be parted from you. I assumed we’d recover from the violence of this op, then have a real conversation about how we do things. For one, I could never live apart from you, and your work is here. What you do is critical, important work, and I would never pull you away from it.”
“I need you,” he says, coming back to snuggle against me.
“And I need you. I would make some noise about moving too fast, but I don’t think either of us actually feels that way. I don’t know all the details, but my plan is to home base from here with you in this adorable trailer and visit my family whenever possible. I think, between Erik and Hedy, we have plenty of options for transport, don’t you?”
He nods, biting his lip. “So…you’re not leaving me?”
Levy once admitted that being a therapist doesn’t solve his abandonment issues from the wreck. His brain still manages to be an asshole sometimes, but I love reminding him of his worth.
“I would sooner leave behind a limb, my love. I’ll be going on operations fairly frequently, so I may be away some nights, but I want very much to come home to you as many nights as possible.”
He grips me, and his long, relieved breath tells me how much he needs the reassurance.
“Did I not say I was in this with you? That what we have is important to me? Did we not share how deep our feelings run within days of meeting each other?”
“Yes. I guess it scared me. Like maybe if love comes on this quickly, it’ll leave quickly. But…this isn’t going to leave quickly. Not for me.”
I cradle him in my arms, willing him to feel how much I love him with every ounce of my being.
“That’s because your parents were right,” I assure him. “When you know, you know. Normal people, I suppose, have the opportunity to date and figure out whether or not their instincts are correct. We weren’t given that luxury, but we do have the luxury of knowing. Just because you’re Dr. Levy Barlowe, equine therapist extraordinaire, doesn’t exempt you from that. You can’t outthink this thing that’s happening between us.”
“But I can worry on it for a little while longer, can’t I?”
“Absolutely. And every time you need reassurance, I’ll be here to give it to you.”
“I swear, I won’t get annoying. I just…I’ve never felt this way. It’s so intense, and I’m so worried. Worried about losing you, worried about you getting bored or frustrated with me.”
Oh, baby.
“I’ve never met a more interesting man in my life,” I promise, running my fingers through his hair and tracing the various tattoos on his shoulders, neck, and face. “And I’m sure with your big fancy degree, you’ll have a problem with what I’m about to say next, but every time you need me to reassure you, I savor it. I need your neediness. Maybe not for always, but after a lifetime of feeling like I’m no one special, like I’ve let my family down, like I couldn’t accomplish the one thing I set out to do, someone needing me is the biggest reassurance you could ever give me.”
He wrinkles his nose, then smiles. “It’s a tiny bit of a red flag, but you’re not creating scenarios in which you make me feel needy. The circumstances do it to me, and you have always reassured me without making me feel stupid. We’re probably using the wordneedyin the wrong way, actually. We just need validation from each other. Maybe a little more than most because of the things we’ve been through. I think that’s okay. I think, as a therapist, I would call that an adjustment. Amodification.”
