“I can’t promise I won’t be afraid,” he said. “But I can promise I won’t disappear when it gets hard.”
The words landed softly. No grandeur. No vows. Just truth.
“I’m learning how to stay in the moment,” I told him. “Even when my brain tells me to vanish. Even when I don’t know what I’m worth yet.”
He leaned in, forehead resting against mine, the lighthouse towering above us like it was bearing witness.
“You’re worth the effort,” he said. “Not because you’re fragile. Because you’re here.”
My breath caught. “Can I…?” I asked, already shifting closer, my knee brushing his thigh.
His hands tightened at my waist—steady, grounding. “Yeah,” he said. “I’m here.”
I straddled him slowly, giving him time to stop me if he needed to. He didn’t. His gaze stayed locked on mine, open and unguarded in a way that made my chest ache.
“Tell me if it’s too much,” I said.
“I will,” he promised. “And you tell me too.”
That was the moment—not the movement, not the closeness—thepermission.
“Thank you, Daddy.”
Anthony gasped as my words registered and I leaned in then, and the kiss was unhurried. Soft at first, exploratory. When his lips moved against mine, it wasn’t hunger. It was relief. Like two people discovering they could breathe in the same space without stealing air from each other.
His hands slid up my back, warm and sure. Mine fisted gently in his hoodie, already mine in the way that mattered.
When we pulled apart, our foreheads stayed pressed together, breath mingling, the wind wrapping around us like a held breath.
For the first time, love didn’t feel like something that would take me under. It felt like something that could hold me steady. Like a breakwater.
CHAPTER 22
ANTHONY
Elliot’s leg was thrown over mine, his face tucked into the hollow of my shoulder like that was where it had always belonged. Sunlight slipped through the curtains in pale bands, catching on the freckles scattered across his nose and cheeks.
I traced them with my mouth. One. Two. Three.
“Anthony,” he laughed, half-asleep, squirming when my lips brushed a sensitive spot near his jaw. “That tickles.”
“That’s the point,” I murmured, pressing another kiss beneath his eye.
He smiled—soft, unguarded. The kind of smile that still startled me every time, because it felt earned. Because it felt fragile. Like it could disappear if I breathed wrong.
I kissed my way across his face until he groaned and buried it in the pillow. “You’re doing that on purpose,” he accused.
“Absolutely.”
He rolled onto his back, blinking up at me, hair sticking out in every direction. “Come shower with me.”
It wasn’t a question.
The bathroom filled with steam quickly, heat curling around us as the water hit the tiles. He stood close—so close our skinbrushed without trying. My hands settled at his waist. His slid up my chest, warm and familiar, like he was relearning the map of me by touch alone.
We kissed. Slow. Open. Unhurried. Nothing frantic. Nothing desperate. Just mouths lingering, breath shared, the quiet understanding that this—this—was allowed now.
When his forehead dropped to my collarbone, I rested my chin in his damp hair and closed my eyes.
