"I went home and I was working on the deck. The one you asked for. And I was kneeling there with a drill telling Ranger we'd still use it, and I—" He stopped. Took a breath. "Claire showed up."
Emily blinked. "Claire?"
"She gave me hell." The corner of his mouth moved. "Told me I was full of it. And she was right. I was hiding. Calling it respect, calling it love, but it was hiding."
His grip tightened.
"I'm not letting you go."
The words detonated.
"I don't know how to say this right. I'm not—" He exhaled. "I've never asked anyone to stay. I don't know what that sounds like. But I'm asking you. I'm asking because I can't do it again. I can't hold the door and smile and watch you walk through it and pretend that's okay."
Emily was crying. She didn't know when it started. The tears were there, running down her face, and she was holding onto him and looking at this man who had finally stopped letting people leave.
"I love you," he said. "And I want you here. And I know what that job means and I know what you gave up to get this far and I'm asking you to stay anyway because I can't?—"
His voice quit on him. She watched it happen. Watched the words run out and the rawness underneath take over, and Jake Walsh sat on a park bench in the late afternoon sun and couldn't finish a sentence because the feeling was bigger than the language he had for it.
"Jake."
"No." The word came out hard. One syllable representing every door he'd ever held open and every goodbye he'd ever swallowed. "No. I'm done."
She took his face in her hands.
"I'm not going," she said.
He went still. Completely, absolutely still, like he'd gone once before, the night she'd saidI love youwith her eyes open and watched the words reach him.
"I'm not going. I knew before you sat down in my office. I knew when Winters made the offer. I knew when she said I'd have to go all in, because that's not what all in means anymore." Her thumbs traced the line of his jaw, holding him there, making him see her. "All in is here. All in is you and Ranger and The Anchor and Claire and Ray and Jacob's terrible swing on Saturday mornings. All in is showing up for the people you love. All in is watching you have nightmares and loving you through them and arguing about curtains the next morning."
"Em—"
"I don't want Washington. I don't want Deputy Chief of anything. I want this. I want us." Her voice was steady, the steadiest it had been all day, the voice of a woman who'd stopped arguing with herself. "I want to come home to you every night and wake up with you every morning and build a life that actually means something instead of just looking impressive on paper."
"You already knew." His voice was barely there. "When I was in your office. Telling you to take it."
"Yes."
"Then why did you let me—" He stopped. She watched the realization land. "You needed me to fight."
"I needed you to want me to stay. Not because I couldn't decide. Because for the first time in my life, someone else's voice mattered, and that voice sat in my office and told me to go."
He closed his eyes. When he opened them, they were bright, and she watched a tear escape down his cheek, catching the afternoon light, the first tear she'd ever seen Jake Walsh shed.
"I was on that deck," he said. "I'd already let you go in my head. I was going to finish the boards and buy a bigger grill and tell myself it was fine."
"What changed?"
"I ran out of places to hide."
She kissed him. Leaned across the bench and kissed him how she'd wanted to in her office when he'd given her that broken performance and she'd let him walk out. She kissed him like she was never going to let him hold another door open for anyone ever again.
When she pulled back, Ranger had given up on dignity and was trying to insert himself between their legs, tail wagging hard enough to throw off his balance.
Jake laughed. The real one. The one that started in his eyes, except those eyes were red-rimmed and wet and the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen.
"You're sure?" he asked.
