She looked across the field, a wistful smile tugging on her lips.“I had lots of dreams when I was younger, but the one I always returned to was landscape architecture.”
“Really?”
She nodded.“I always liked the idea of taking something ugly or forgotten and making it beautiful again.”
I studied her profile.The quiet conviction.The spark of who she might have been before all of this.Before Victor.
“It’s not too late, you know,” I offered softly.“You’re still young.”
“Can’t say the same for you, old man.”She smirked, cutting through the tension.
“Don’t they say forty is the new thirty?”
“I think people who are forty say that.”She playfully nudged me.
“You’re only as old as you feel,” I countered.
She slowed to a stop and faced me, peering at me through her lashes.“And how do you feel?”
The air between us shifted, becoming thicker, charged.I could have told her the truth.That I felt alive for the first time in years.That I wanted to touch her.Taste her.Breathe her in until she filled every empty space I’d once been content to ignore.
Instead, I said, “Peaceful.”
She stepped closer.“Peaceful?”
“Yeah.”
Her lips curved faintly.“I like peaceful.”
“Me, too.”
The words came out low and rough.
I leaned toward her, drawn by a magnetism I couldn’t control, the world narrowing to just her and me.Not the lies I told.Not the constant threat to her safety.Right now, nothing else mattered except this moment.This heat.This want…
Until Cato barreled into my side, almost throwing me off balance.
He dropped the ball at my feet, looking at me expectantly, his tail wagging like he’d done me a favor.
“Cockblocker,” I muttered.
“Doesn’t look like he cares.”
“What can I say?He likes my balls.”
Her laughter echoed around us, bright and unguarded.The sound of it reached deep inside me, thawing pieces I thought had died years ago.I’d do anything to hear her laugh again.To give her a life where she had a reason to laugh like this every damn day.
“What about you?”
“What about me?”I threw the ball again, and Cato sprinted after it.
“What wasyourdream as a kid?Did you always want to be a hacker?”
“I’m in cybersecurity,” I corrected.
“Same thing.”
I chuckled and stared ahead.“I’m not sure I ever had dreams as a child.My dad ripped us away from our normal life when I was young.After that, my one dream was surviving.Getting my mom and brother out of that hellhole.”I released a humorless laugh.“You already know how that turned out.”
