Recognition.
Because that wasn’t romance.
That was inevitability.
Micah shifted, propping himself up on one elbow, his body angled over mine without fully pinning me. His presence filled the small bed like a storm cloud pressing against glass.
“You regret it?” he asked suddenly.
I blinked. “What?”
“Earlier,” he clarified, voice tight. “Do you regret … choosing me.”
The question was so raw it shocked me.
Micah didn’t look like a man who asked questions like that.
He looked like a man who assumed.
Who controlled.
Who never gave people the power to reject him.
And yet here he was, watching my face like my answer mattered more than anything else.
My chest tightened.
“No,” I said immediately. “I don’t.”
His gaze held mine.
I added, softer, “I’ve regretted not choosing things in my life. I’ve regretted being scared. I’ve regretted letting ‘later’ steal moments from me.”
Micah’s expression shifted—something like pain, quickly buried.
“But I don’t regret you,” I finished.
He exhaled slowly, like he’d been holding his breath.
Then he leaned down—not to devour me.
Just to press his forehead to mine.
A quiet touch.
An intimate one.
The kind that said:I’m here.
My eyes closed.
For a second, I let myself simply exist in it.
Not thinking about consequences. Not trying to manage the future.
Just feeling the weight of him—real and warm and impossible—in my small, safe bed above a bakery that smelled like comfort.
I opened my eyes again and found him watching me.
