My chest tightens, but I stay quiet. Let him talk. He needs this.
So do I.
More than anything.
“I panicked,” he admits. “That gift… it felt right at the time and then it felt fast. I saw this article about lovebombing, and I lost it. It hit every single nerve.” His voice gets quieter. “I haven’t said the thing I need to say. The thing that’s been chewing at the back of my throat since I sent that stupid email like a goddamn coward.”
I listen, and the silence makes it worse, makes the words rush out of him in a torrent.
“My girlfriend cheated on me,” he confesses, voice low, like it hurts to say it out loud. “With one of my coworkers. Jackson. He’s here. With her. Laughing like the past year meant nothing.”
He pauses, his jaw tightens, not from anger, but shame. “I lost myself in that fallout. Started questioning everything. My instincts. My judgment. What I was worth. I stopped trusting the part of me that feels things too deeply and started playing by rules I didn’t write. Pretending I was fine. Pretending I didn’t care.”
His gaze lifts to mine, steady, raw. “Then I met you. And suddenly I could breathe again.”
And suddenly I can’t.
“You were a spark in a blackout. At first, I convinced myself it was nothing, just heat, proximity, a fluke I could file away as a rebound before it got deep.”
A bitter smile feathers across his lips.
“But it was never just heat. You got under my skin immediately and in ways I didn’t think were possible, especially after Chloe. And instead of leaning into it, I tried to contain it. Label it. Push it away, so I wouldn’t have to risk heartbreak again.”
He leans forward, eyes dark with an emotion deeper than lust. “I should’ve said screw the rules. Screw the timing. Screw what anyoneelse thinks. Because my heart was screaming your name. And I didn’t listen.”
The night wraps around us as those simple words rip holes through my defenses.
Nolan looks down for a second, thumb trailing small circles on the water’s surface. “But I should’ve. Way more than I wanted to admit. And when I started feeling things for you, so quickly, so deeply—” His breath hitches like it hurts him. “I thought I was going to mess it up. Or scare you off. Or make you regret ever letting me in.”
My heart thuds against my ribs. It’s trying to escape the truth he’s pouring into the air between us. I want to look away. I want to hide behind a joke or a jab or literally anything that doesn’t require me to face this tidal wave of honesty.
But I can’t.
Because it’s hitting me now. All of it.
I did the same thing at first. Refused my feelings, pushed him away. It was easier to do that than accept that he might be the one person who sees me—all of me.
Then I gave into those feelings. That want. That need. And it’s stayed with me ever since. And since we’re leaning into metaphors, every moment with him became an anchor in the storm. Not the kind that saves you. The kind that drags. Heavy with what could’ve been. Sharp with what wasn’t.
But even so, it held me still, reminded me what it felt like to want something in the middle of all that loss.
And this man stepped into my shambled life without asking for a map. He offered me steadiness without strings. He pulled away, yes—but not because he didn’t care.
Maybe because hedid.
And now here he is, standing in the aftermath of our storm with his heart in his hands, giving me the choice.
“I hate that I hurt you,” he says softly. “But I’m also done pretending I don’t feel what I feel.”
He smiles, softly. Wounded.
My throat is tight. My heart’s an unmade bed of feelings I’m still figuring out how to climb into.
“I don’t know what all of this means. I don’t have a perfect answer. But I know I’ve missed you. I haven’t stopped thinking about you. About us. About what we could’ve been if I hadn’t let fear win.”
Something different ignites between us.
Possibility. Hope.
