“I’m so s-sorry—” A watery sniffle fractures my attempt to speak.
“Hey,” he murmurs, his touch incredibly tender as he tilts my chin up, seeking my gaze.“Whatever it is, it’s okay.”
I shake my head, a jerky motion that is a desperate attempt at the composure I’m losing.“It’s not okay.”
My gaze locks with his, and my internal dam of shame cracks wide open.I need him to see my regret.Not just to hear the words I’m about to say, but to see the truth of them.
“What I said to you that day…” My voice cracks on the last word, the memory alone enough to make it tremble.“In the café…”
“Matt…” I have to force his name past the lump forming in my throat.“Y-you arenothinglike him.”
My admission feels both monumental and hopelessly inadequate.
“I was just...so overwhelmed.”The explanation feels flimsy, pathetic, but it’s the only one I have.“So much was happening.And I let all my fear, all my history with him, twist my words, and I… I compared you to James.”
I feel a subtle tension tighten his arms, but he doesn’t speak.He continues to watch me, his expression softening with dawning understanding, giving me the space to confess.
“To say that to you, of all people,” I whisper, the words an ache in my throat.“I wish I could take those words back.”The tears flow again.“I am really sorry, Matt.”
His eyes, when they find mine, are luminous.Glistening with unshed tears that make them look like captured stars.
A soft sigh escapes him before he drops his head back and pulls me to him, wrapping his arms tightly around my shoulders.“You’re breaking me,” he mutters to himself.
I pull back to look up at his face.His eyes are closed, a single tear escaping down his cheek.
“I’m sorry,” I repeat, resting my palm against the side of his face and wiping away the tear.
When he reopens his eyes, the maelstrom of emotions in them stills the breath in my lungs.“You’re breaking my rules,” he tells me with a self-deprecating smile.“My unbreakable truths that I spent so long believing.”He shakes his head, a look of dazed wonder softening his gaze as his finger traces my cheek down to my chin.“Until you happened.”
My fingers lightly trace down his temple.Over his cheekbone.Down to his jawline where that muscle still jumps.He doesn’t pull away as I slowly lean in, my lips meeting his in a whisper of contact.A quiet reverence for the courage it took him to lay his barricaded soul so bare before me.
I feel him respond.A soft sigh escapes him; his lips yield, answering my tenderness with a hesitant, aching gentleness of his own.
The kiss deepens into a slow, melting certainty.
A silent communion in the stillness, sealing this new, fragile truth that has just taken root.
Your broken rules, your shattered truths…
It’s all safe here.
With me.
When I reluctantly draw back, my forehead comes to rest against his.My eyes flutter open to find his face etched with an almost boyish vulnerability underscored by a peaceful gravity.
The air around us feels sacred.
Lost in the depths of his emerald greens, I softly glide my thumb over his eyebrow.“Why the rules?”I whisper, needing to understand the shadows behind his words.“Why so strict?”
He lowers my hand from his face and presses my palm to his.His fingers interlace with mine, as if drawing strength from the contact.“It’s safer,” he murmurs, his gaze fixed on our joined hands.As if the answer, too complex for easy words, resides there.
“Safer, how?What are you so afraid of?”My voice is soft, terrified that any more pressure might make him retreat.
He lowers our intertwined hands to the fleece between us and leans back against the lounger.He exhales a long, heavy breath that seems to carry the weight of years of suppressed pain.“I’m afraid of repeating what she went through.”He looks up at me.“And what you went through.”His lips thin into a taut white line as they draw inward, the effort of his confession etched into every muscle of his jaw.
His words land, and everything clicks into place with an aching clarity.
His rules.
