Her fingers curl in my shirt again, but it’s not desperation now. It’s… grounding.
“What are we going to do?” she asks. “About my grandmother?”
“We’re going to do what we’ve been doing,” I say. “We’re going to show her that this is real. That we live together. That we know each other. That we’ve woven our lives together, whether we meant to or not.” I tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. “She doesn’t get to decide if we’re real. We do.”
“And if she… asks?” she says quietly. “If she pushes. If she wants proof?”
“Then we give her everything else we’ve got,” I say. “Trips, routines, how you like your tea, where you keep your pointe shoes, the way my mom already loves you, how my dad said last night he hasn’t seen me this happy since before his accident. We give her the truth. All of it. Except the one thing that’s yours.”
Her throat works. “And if it’s not enough?”
“Then we deal with that when it comes and we file for a green card if she decides to make the visa renewal harder on you,” I say. “But we don’t preemptively give her your first time like it’s a visa stamp.”
Her eyes squeeze shut. A tear leaks out of the corner and tracks down her cheek.
I wipe it away with my thumb.
“I’m scared,” she admits.
“I know,” I say. “I’m scared too.”
She opens her eyes at that, surprised.
I nod. “I’m terrified that I’m going to lose you. That I’m going to have to watch you walk back into that world and pretend we never happened. But I’d rather live with that fear than be the guy who took something from you because you were cornered.”
She stares at me for a long moment. Then she steps in, sliding her arms around my waist and pressing her face into my chest.
I wrap her up without thinking, arms banding around her, chin resting on the top of her head.
We stand there for a while. Just breathing. Just existing in the same space while the world tilts.
After a minute, she pulls back enough to look up at me.
“If,” she says slowly, carefully, “after all this is over, if I’m still here, and I still want… that. If I still want it to be with you?” she asks, looking innocent and almost worried about my answer. “Will you say yes then?”
I don’t even have to think about it.
“Yeah, KitKat,” I say softly. “If you choose me without a gun to your head? I’ll say yes.”
A hint of relief briefly appears on her face. It’s small, but it’s there.
I brush my thumb over her lower lip because I can’t not touch her.
“Until then,” I add, “I kiss you when I want to, I hold you when you let me, and I protect you from scary grandmothers. Deal?”
A tiny smile pulls at her mouth. “You really think you can protect me from her?”
“Hey.” I puff my chest out a little, making her roll her eyes. “I throw my body in front of hundred-mile-an-hour slapshots for a living. I can handle one Russian grandma.”
“She will eat you for breakfast,” she says dryly.
“Then I’ll carb load first,” I tease. “Then I’ll be too big to eat.”
That gets a real laugh. The tension in her shoulders eases a fraction.
She rises on her toes and presses a soft kiss to my mouth. It’s quick, gentle, nothing like the desperate heat I know we’re capable of—but it feels like a resolution to the conversation… for now.
“Thank you,” she whispers against my lips.
