Which is ridiculous.
I’mPlainy-Laney.
What in the world can I offer to him that he can’t find anywhere else?
He’s here because he heard I got hurt havingan adventureand he feels bad.
“Never mind.” I twist in my seat, wishing I could get up.
“Because you’re my purpose,” he says quietly. “And even if you don’t want me anymore, you deserve to know how special you are and how sorry I am that I was an ass.”
My pulse goes on a breakaway. “If this is just a bunch of guilt—”
“My whole heart shattered into pieces when I heard you were hurt. Not because I wanted to be there keeping you safe. Because I missed out on being there to watch you fly. To watch you soar. To watch you do what I kept telling myself you wouldn’t do so that I could lie to myself and say it was akindnessto you to be a dick on Saturday night instead of fighting for you like I should’ve. I don’t want you to move on without me. I want you to move onwithme. I lived in guilt for a lot of years before I found a way to accept myself for who I am, and it made me do a lot of shitty things. I don’t want to go back to living in guilt for pushing you away when you’re the only person I’ve ever wanted.”
“Butwhy? Whyme?”
He leans over and scoops up two kittens that he keeps for himself. “Because you know all of the darkest, ugliest, worst parts of me. You have a million reasons to hate me. To never want to see me again. But you spent last week believing in me as one of the good guys. You. Laney Kingston. Accepting me.Embracingme. Living with me. There’s nobody else in the world, Laney. No one else who could understand expectations and boxes and having to fight for the life you want to live. No one else who can challenge me the same. No one else who can make me feel like I’m on a bigger adventure than I am when I’m with you. I don’t want easy. I don’t want superficial. I meant it when I told you I don’t want some half-ass love. I want it all. And I want it with you.”
My heart is swelling outside of my chest. Tears drip down my nose. “For someone who’s spent our whole lives calling mePlainy-Laney, you sure do know how to make a girl feel special.”
He smiles softly and brushes a lock of hair out of my face. “Won’t get that from some boring-ass banker.”
“I don’t care what you do for work,” I whisper. “You’re doing good in the world.”
He shakes his head. “Time to move on.”
“Theo—”
“Posted my last video already today.”
“You’re quitting because of me.”
“Not quitting. Reconsidering my course. Penises are a dime a dozen. Got a pretty damn fine woody here, but they didn’t come back for my dick. They came back for what I had to say. And as someone very wise reminded me last week…I like to eat.”
My jaw won’t quite close. “Penises are a dime a dozen?”
He grins.
And then grins bigger.
And then the butthead giggles.
And it’s so cute that I drop my head to his shoulder and start laughing too.
“I wasso mad at youten minutes ago,” I wheeze into his shoulder.
He wraps an arm around me and kisses my temple, heat radiating out of his body. He needs to lose the jacket. He’s always too hot.
“I love making you laugh,” he says. “Favorite sound in the world.”
“No, it’s not.”
“It is. I’ve waited forever for this. I don’t take it for granted.”
Three more kittens poke their heads out of the kitchen.
Theo kisses my hair again.
