“I know.” His smile is soft. Sad. “And that's exactly why I need you to wait.”
“I don't need to wait. I know what I want.”
“Then you'll still want it next week. Or next month.” He pulls back enough to look me in the eyes. “I want you to choose me with a clear head, Sierra. I want you to choose me in the daylight, when you've had time to think. When the high has worn off and the fear has crept back in and you've had a chance to really consider what telling them means.”
My throat tightens. “You don't think I've considered it?”
“I think you've been considering it from the day we crossed the line.” He tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. “I think you've been so scared of the cost that you've never let yourself actually decide. And tonight—after everything I said, after everything we just did—tonight isn't the night to make that choice.”
“But—”
“I've waited this long, Sierra.” He says it simply. Without accusation. Without bitterness. Just fact. “I can wait a little longer. I can wait until you're certain. Until there's no part of you that wonders if you only said yes because I broke you down first.”
The tears come before I can stop them.
“Hey.” He pulls me against his chest. “Hey, no. That's not—I'm not trying to make you cry again.”
“I know.” I press my face into his shirt. Breathe him in. “I know what you're doing. You're being good. You're being so fucking good, and I don't deserve?—”
“Don't.” The word is sharp. “Don't tell me what you don't deserve. Not after everything we just—” He exhales. “You deserve someone who wants you to be sure. Who wants you to choose him with your whole heart, not just the parts that are scared and desperate and trying to outrun the hurt.”
I pull back. Look up at him.
“What if my whole heart has been choosing you this entire time? What if it just took the rest of me eleven years to catch up?”
Something flickers across his face. Hope. Want. The desperate urge to believe me.
But he shakes his head.
“Then prove it to me tomorrow.” He kisses my forehead. Soft. Reverent. “Sleep on it. Wake up in the daylight. Look at your brothers' faces over breakfast and really think about what telling them means. And if you still want this—if you still want me?—”
“I will.”
“—then you come find me.” His hands slide down my arms. Squeeze my fingers. “And we figure out the rest together. And we don’t do it while Tara is here. I won’t give her the satisfaction.”
The darkroom feels different now. Charged. Changed. Like the air itself knows something has shifted between us.
“Okay,” I whisper.
“Okay?”
“Okay.” I squeeze his hands back. “Tomorrow. Daylight. Clear head. And then I come find you.”
His smile breaks open, and for a moment he looks seventeen again. That boy on the mountain who looked at me like I hung the moon.
“I'll be waiting.” He brings my hands to his lips. Kisses my knuckles. “I've gotten pretty good at it.”
We clean up in comfortable silence. Wipe down the counter. Check the trays. Move through the familiar motions of closing down a darkroom for the night.
Above us, his photograph hangs still and steady. No longer dripping. Finally dry.
I stop beneath it an study the image I captured without knowing why.
Everett in golden hour light. Fifth-generation owner, framed by the window his ancestors built.
His history still being written.
Our history. Still being written.
