"Callum..."
"But here we are. You're pushing. You're destroying. And you're using logistics as an excuse because it's easier than admitting you're terrified of what this could be."
Tears spill down her cheeks. She doesn't wipe them away.
"I am terrified," she whispers. "I'm terrified that I've fallen for you in four days and that makes me insane. I'm terrified that if I stay, I'll lose myself completely. And I'm terrified that if I leave, I'll regret it for the rest of my life."
The confession is raw.She loves me.
Four days, and she loves me.
"Then stay." I close the distance between us, reaching for her hands. She lets me take them. "Stay and figure it out with me. I'm not asking you to uproot your whole life right now. I'm asking you to give this a chance. Give us a chance."
"How? You're here. I'm supposed to be in Chicago."
"Chicago isn't going anywhere. Your apartment will still be there. Your life will still be there. But right now, you don't have a job tying you down. You have time to think about what you actually want." I squeeze her fingers. "Spend that time here. With me. Not forever. Just long enough to see if this is real."
"And if it's not? If we spend a few weeks together and realize we don't actually work?"
"Then at least we'll know. At least we'll have tried." I bring her hands to my lips, pressing a kiss to her knuckles. "I'd rather try and fail than spend the rest of my life wondering what would have happened if you'd stayed."
She's trembling. I can feel it in her fingers, see it in the set of her shoulders.
"My mom is expecting me back today."
"Your mom wants you to be happy. She told me so herself."
"My sister just got married. I can't miss the send-off brunch."
"The brunch starts at eleven. That's three hours from now. Plenty of time to cancel a cab and flight to let me drive you." I tilt her chin up, forcing her to meet my eyes. "Stop looking for reasons to run. Tell me what you actually want."
"I want..." She closes her eyes. "I want to stop being scared. I want to believe this is real. I want to wake up tomorrow and know that you're still going to be there."
"I'm going to be here. Tomorrow and every day after that, for as long as you'll let me."
"You can't promise that."
"I can promise to try. I can promise that when things get hard, I won't bail. I won't fold. I'll stand right here and fightfor us even when you're convinced we're not worth fighting for." I wipe a tear from her cheek with my thumb. "That's all any of us can promise, Nadia. That we'll try. That we'll stay. That we'll choose each other over and over again, especially when it's hard."
She's quiet for a long moment. I watch the war play out across her features. Fear versus hope. Old wounds versus new possibilities.
Then she lets go of her suitcase.
"So I cancel the flight, what happens after brunch?"
"After that, we come back here. We talk. We figure out what this looks like moving forward." I pull her into my arms, and she comes willingly, her face pressing into my chest. "No pressure. No ultimatums. Just two people who want to see where this goes."
"That sounds terrifyingly reasonable."
"I'm a terrifyingly reasonable man."
She laughs, wet and shaky, and the sound loosens something that's been wound tight in my chest since she walked away last night.
"I'm sorry," she mumbles against my shirt. "For pushing. For running. For being exactly the kind of mess I promised I wouldn't be."
"You're not a mess. You're human." I press a kiss to the top of her head. "And for the record, I'm sorry too. I should have fought harder last night. You asked for space and I gave it to you, but what you actually needed was for someone to hold on."
"I told you to leave me alone."
