He leans in, his nearness skimming past my cheek, close enough to stir the tiny hairs along my jaw, and brushes butterfly-soft kisses on each eyelid. Then he presses a kiss to my forehead. It’s not only tender. It feels like a reverent oath. His nearness is intoxicating as I let the warmth of his lips soak into me, calming the flutter still stirring inside.
Next, he moves his lips to the bridge of my nose, a gentle nuzzle that sends tremors down my spine, as if it were a seed nestling into the soil. His kisses are silently tiptoeing across my face, a space sacred to him. My temple. The corner of my mouth. My chin. Each place he finds feels known and important, as if he’s honoring the parts of me no one else has ever truly acknowledged. Where I’ve smiled, cried, held back, each kiss a promise that he sees it all and still wants more. When he finally finds my mouth, he kisses me fully.
This kiss doesn’t ask or perform. It affirms, boldly.
There’s no question in his kiss. No hesitation. It deepens with the kind of certainty that strips thought away, leaving only response. I sink into it, into him, my hand finding his hair, weaving through the long strands until his breath hitches.
Not from surprise, but from something that sounds close to surrender.
His arms wrap around me, drawing me close, closer, until there’s no air between us. This is his answer, and I relish the thrum of being wanted along with the bone-deep relief of being chosen.
The rest of it—the town, the festival, the dare, the pretending—fades into nothingness, and we begin to swayto a rhythm that belongs only to us. He rests his cheek against the top of my head, giving me access to draw in the unique scent of his chest. The moment settles around us like a secret we both know by heart.
I don’t know how long we stay there, wrapped up in each other. But when we finally part, unstrung and dazed, he rests his forehead on mine. My eyes stay closed. I don’t need to see him to know that he’s here. That he’s mine.
His hand moves to the small of my back, still wanting to keep me in this space of togetherness, grounded by the connection we’ve found.
“Maisie,” he whispers, voice rough, “every kiss, every touch, every moment—it’s all for you. Not for them. Not for anyone else. Just you.”
I open my eyes, and everything in his face tells me he means it. Every doubt that’s been coiled in me unspools. I smile, soft and shaky, while my heart dances.
“Stay,” he says. “Just for a little while. Be with me.” His voice is barely more than a murmur, warm from our kisses, thick with wanting, like he’s offering more than he dares name.
I nod, my voice too thick to speak.
He leads me to the couch where his guitar rests and pushes it gently aside. We sit together for what must be hours, telling stories from our childhoods, laughing, crying, continuing our journey towards fully knowing and choosing each other. As we talk, our fingers explore the shape of each other’s hands, backs, and shoulders while our hearts do their own silent roaming.
At some point as it’s getting late, I realize that I never told him what I intended to if I had run into him the night I overheard him playing and singing at the music hall. I could have shared my feelings that evening, but I was so sweptaway by the music and emotion brought on by it that I left without saying what I needed to say.
I inhale deeply, willing my voice to work as I reach inside myself and pull out the places that have hurt the most for so long. “Beau, can I tell you something?”
“Anything, sweetheart. Always.”
Tugging on one of my curls, I begin timidly. “Since I was a young girl, I’ve been told I’m too much. Too loud. Too intense. Too emotional. Too…big.”
I sigh and pause. Beau tilts his head letting me know he’s listening.
“I’ve spent years trying to take up less space so that people want me around. So I don’t embarrass them. I believed the lie that I need to earn the space allotted to me, and if I couldn’t do that…” I bite my lower lip. “If I wasn’t good enough to earn that, then I needed to be smaller…take up less space.”
“I’ve noticed,” he offers softly.
“You have?” A soft heat unfurls behind my ribs. “It’s just that…now that I’m with you, and I want that more than anything, I keep waiting for the moment you’ll feel it too—that I’m... too much. And you’ll want out also.”
Beau’s reply isn’t poetry, but it’s no less truthful. “Maisie, you’re the first person I’ve met who feels like more in the best way. You don’t take up too much space. You fill it beautifully and uniquely.” He reaches for my hand, caressing my skin, centering me.
But my voice still quivers as I continue, “Gray trained me to be less. To blend in.”
Stroking my hair now, Beau is silent, giving me time to find the right words.
“I learned to fill only the exact space he created forme, to be who he wanted. To fit his mold. I thought that was what love required.”
“Oh, my Maisie, I’m sorry you went through that. Gray was so wrong. You’re vivid. You’re present. You’re full of life. That’s not something to fix—it’s something to show off.”
He squeezes my hand. “You are you, and I want that from you.”
“That’s it, Beau. You give me room to be all of me. And I can’t tell you what that means, because I feel as though most people…want me smaller.”
He gives me a reassuring smile as I continue, “With you, I don’t feel small, and I don’t feel the need to be. You see me, all of me, and I can breathe. Expand. Be as bubbly and boisterous and silly as I want to be at any moment.”
