“I did.”
She nodded once, like that settled something.“You didn’t tell me so I could get ready.”She smiled before she reached up, cupped my face, and kissed me.
No hesitation.
No testing.
Just certainty.
It hit me so hard my chest ached.I followed her inside without breaking the kiss, the door clicking shut behind us, my hands already familiar with the shape of her.The sex came easily—heat and urgency and that same deep connection that made everything else fade—but what struck me was how unguarded she was.
She didn’t hold back.
Didn’t keep one foot braced for retreat.
And somewhere between the second time we collapsed into her bed and the quiet that followed, it hit me.
I was in love with her.
Not the reckless, explosive kind that burned itself out.
The steady kind.
The kind that made you want to fix things and stay and learn the rhythms of another person’s life.The kind that made you imagine mornings and groceries and shared silence.
I didn’t say it.
Not because I was afraid.
Because I respected it too much to rush it out into the open like a challenge.
The days that followed felt normal.In the best of ways.We went to dinner at a quiet place she liked where no one paid us much attention.Sat side by side instead of across from each other.Shared bites.Talked about nothing important and everything that mattered.
We watched a movie on her couch, her feet tucked under my thigh, her head on my shoulder.She fell asleep halfway through, and I didn’t move because the weight of her there felt like something earned.
On the third morning, her dishwasher decided to flood half the kitchen.
She stood there barefoot, staring at the water creeping across the tile like it had personally betrayed her.“I don’t have time for this,” she muttered.
I smiled, rolled up my sleeves, and shut off the water.
“You don’t have to—” she started.
“I know,” I explained.“I want to.”
I spent the afternoon hauling out the old unit, mopping water, running to the hardware store like it was the most natural thing in the world.She hovered at first, then retreated to her laptop, watching me from the counter like she wasn’t quite sure how to process a man fixing something without being asked.
When I slid the new dishwasher into place and turned it on, she clapped once, genuinely pleased.
“You’re dangerous,” she smirked.
I wiped my hands on a towel.“Because I can use a wrench?”
“Because you fit,” she corrected quietly.“Total package, baby.”
That night, she kissed me like she was trying to say something she hadn’t put into words yet.I felt it anyway.
When it was time to leave, I hated it.
