“Kit,” he rumbles. He tucks my hair behind my ears as he frowns down at me. “You’re worrying me.”
“My parents are sostupid,” I reply. “My goodness, I can’t even recognize love when I’m feeling it. And it’s all theirstupid, stupidfault.”
He stills, nose scrunching. “What?”
“I’m so glad their lives suck,” I continue. “Thrilled about it. Butmineis supposed to be better without them. I’m supposed to be thriving now that I’m no longer under their care. But no.Nooooo. Instead, I find out that I’m in love with a man after… well, who knows how long? But did I have a clue? Of course not! Because they messed me right up! Are you kidding me? What kind of trashisthat?” I groan again, this time in disgust. “You’re literally in there finding out that your parents believe all of the exact same things I’ve been telling you I believe about you, and I see so clearly that they love you in part because they believe in all of the goodness that you put into the world, and I believe all of those things, too, and so… I mean, I love you, then, right? I must, if I think all of that about you. I think more highly of you than I do Almond, or my sisters, or anyone, really, and isn’t that just more proof?” Desperate, I lock eyes with him, hoping he’ll see right through my irises to the emotions beneath and identify them for me. “Except I don’t feel about you how I feel about Almond, or my sisters, or anyone. I feelmuchdifferently about you. You make my heart pitter and patter. You make my skin sting like a livewire. You make me want to kiss and be kissed. You cause all this… this…physicalsensation. Attraction, I thought. But if you’re attracted to a person that you think more highly of than anyone else in your life, then… well, whatisthat? Is it love? Is itinlove? How am I supposed to know when the only ‘love’ I ever saw or received was so steeped in fear and anger and resentment, it was most certainly not love at all.”
I jolt to sitting, the better to appeal to the experts. “How do you know when you’re in love?” I ask Belinda. “How do you know what it feels like?” I ask Gil.
Fox’s breaths cease as I pant for my own.
Belinda sets the ice pack on the counter beside her. “Sweetheart, I think you already know,” she answers softly, the same knowing spark in her eyes as when she rescued Sonnet and me from our car when we first met. The spark that says that she knows what my future looks like, and she’s happy she gets to be a part of the beauty it will hold.
She wasn’t wrong last time.
So she must not be this time, either.
And that’s good enough for me.
I launch myself at Fox, wrapping my arms around his neck and pressing my mouth to his startled lips.
“We should go,” Gil murmurs as the gas stove clicks off.
Belinda agrees, and they sneak away next door to visit Amia and Wolfe while Fox and I cry like babies on his living room floor, kissing each other’s tears away until I’m not sure if the salt on my tongue is from me or him.
“We should have my parents over more often,” he says, hoisting us up. “Real problem solvers, them.”
I dig my face into his chest, laughing as our arms cocoon each other. “They love you,” I say. “I told you so.”
“And so do you.” He sighs. “Not even 8:00 AM and this is already the best day of my life.”
As the morning sun beats down on us through his big, beautiful windows on this big, beautiful day, my agreement comes quickly. “I’m sorry I didn’t realize sooner,” I tell him. “I blame my parents. Fully. As usual, they are the cause of every bad thing in my life.”
“Let’s be honest, kit, would I have believed you? If you had known sooner? If you had told me sooner? I didn’t think myown parents thought that well of me. As it is, I’m not completely convinced this morning hasn’t been a dream. My parents trust me. The love of my life loves me back.” He rests his cheek on my hair. “It givestoo good to be truein a big way.”
“Too good to be true would be if I hadn’t hijacked your conversation with your parents to have a minor mental collapse in the face of a big emotion,” I retort, rolling my eyes at myself.
He shrugs. “Conversation was already over. You laid the groundwork for them already. All that was left was to hear it from their own mouths, and then it just… clicked. You were right. Everything you said they thought about me, they did. Everything you said I didn’t need to worry about, I didn’t.”
I sniff. “I guess…”
“Not to mention, you wouldn’t be you without a bit of drama thrown in. I’d expect nothing less than for your love to be as dramatic and bratty as the rest of you. Of course it wouldn’t present itself tied nicely in a bow. And none of us should expect it to.”
He’s… really not wrong. At all.
And yet.
“I still blame my parents.” I pout. “We could’ve been kissingwaysooner if it weren’t for them.”
He lets loose a big, booming laugh, then bends, lifting me into his arms princess-style. The smile on his face radiates joy, beaming more light than the early-morning sun could ever hope to wield. “Let’s go make up for lost time, then, yes?”
I return his beam, hoping my watts measure up to his. “Yes,” I answer. “And Fox?”
“Yes, my kit?”
“Yes to that other question, too.”
His smile falters as confusion hits, then clears, elation turning up the sunrays in his smile near to blinding.
