"All of them." He stopped, turning to face me. The streetlight caught the gray-blue of his eyes. "The housing discrimination series. The foster system exposé. The Lang investigation. Everything."
"Why?"
"Because they were you." Simple. Like it was obvious. "Reading them was the only way I could still... know you. See who you were becoming."
Something cracked open in my chest. All those years I'd been convinced he'd moved on, that I was nothing but a bad memory, and he'd been collecting pieces of me. Holding onto whatever fragments he could find.
"I love you."
The words came out fierce. Certain. Not the soft confession of before, wrapped in tears and apologies.
This was a declaration.
"I should have said it five years ago when I saw you with that woman and walked away instead of fighting for you." I stepped closer. "I love you, Garrett. I've loved you since I was twenty-two, and I'm not going to be afraid of it anymore."
He cupped my face in his hands. Calloused palms, rough from years of gripping hose and climbing ladders, gentle now against my cheeks.
"You're saying it now." His voice was rough. "That's what matters."
He kissed me on a Brooklyn street corner.
And I finally understood what coming home meant.
It wasn't a place. It wasn't four walls and a roof and an address you could write on an envelope.
It was this. His mouth on mine. His hands in my hair. The feeling of being known completely and loved anyway.
Home was a person.
Home was him.
We didn't make it past the hallway.
The apartment door barely closed behind us before I was reaching for him—his shirt, his belt, any part of him I could touch. His mouth found my throat, and I gasped, arching into him.
"Bedroom," I managed.
"Yeah."
We stumbled down the hall, shedding clothes as we went. His shirt. My dress, pooling green silk on the hardwood floor. His hands on my waist, my back, everywhere at once.
The bedroom was dark, but I didn't care. I knew him by feel, by the catch of his breath when I kissed the scar on his shoulder, by the groan that escaped when I pressed close.
This time was different.
Not the desperate reunion of that first night, all hunger and urgency and eight years of longing breaking free. This was slower. More deliberate. Like we had all the time in the world and intended to use every second of it.
Garrett lowered me onto the bed. I pulled him down with me. His weight settled over me, solid and warm, and I wrapped around him like I could keep him there forever.
"I love you," I whispered against his mouth.
"I love you." He kissed my jaw. My throat. The hollow between my collarbones.
"I love you." Against my sternum.
"I love you." Lower.
My back arched. My hands found his shoulders, his hair, anything to anchor myself as sensation built.
