And I lay very still under his touch as he tenderly swept a thumb under my eye, only for his hand to move to my side where he glided his knuckles gently over my ribs.
“My woman’s not sleeping,” he said softly, and my breath hitched. “Only days since she left me, I can see she’s lost weight. She runs from me, I tackle her after she wrenched her back. And I made her run from me. Twice. Not doing such a good job at looking after you, my love.”
My love.
Now totally finding it hard to breathe.
“Dair,” I whispered.
“What I said earlier, about making a promise to Mum I’d sort this, that wasn’t what drove me back to you. I told myself I was giving you time. But I hurt ye and I didnae ken how to fix it. I was going to come to ye as soon as I figured out how to fix it.”
He was going to come back to me.
I started to turn to him, and he scowled.
“Stay still,” he rumbled.
“Honestly, I feel better,” I assured.
“You need to rest it and you’ll be resting it,” he commanded.
Whatever.
I settled back and started, “Dair?—”
He interrupted me.
“Though, feel it necessary to note, I might have had a clue in how to fix it if you’d answered one of my texts or phone calls.”
Oh dear.
“I only say that because it needs to be said,” he went on. “This shite is not going to happen to us again. I take full responsibility for fucking that up, and I earned your response. I’ll never fuck up that huge again, but I can’t promise never to fuck up, and you can’t either. But if we get into it, I need you not to shut me out so we can work it out.”
This was needed advice for us to have a healthy relationship, so I nodded.
He again didn’t hide his relief from me.
God, I knew honesty and candor was hard on some occasions, but even if it was, it worked a whole lot better than the other way around.
“When we were on the train, and you asked me if you needed to make it official, ye didnae mean spending more time in the UK. You meant being with me.”
How he’d misinterpreted that at the time hurt in a way I didn’t want to remember it, because I’d already sensed he was pulling away, but since he brought it up, I couldn’t stop myself from sucking in both my lips.
Not that he would, considering he was only maybe twelve inches away, but Dair didn’t miss it.
“Christ, I fucked this,” he muttered.
“We’re working it out,” I reminded him.
“Aye, but just to say, we’re flying to Dublin, then to Edinburgh, and then collecting my dog and coming back here if ye need to be here. Because I dinnae mistake ye now, lassie. And we’re making it official.”
“I think, before I agree, I should know precisely what that means,” I said carefully.
“What you meant it to mean at the time. We’re doing this. I’m with you, you’re with me. Always.”
Oh boy.
“Do you think we’re going too fast?”
