Watching her sleep.
Neither of us moving. Neither of us willing to be the one to let go.
Eventually, we slipped into the hallway, pulling Mia's door almost closed behind us.
I leaned against the wall, legs unsteady, heart pounding. The adrenaline was fading now, leaving something raw and exposed in its wake. I couldn't stop replaying it—Liam sitting on Mia's bed, talking about his parents, his grief, his grandmother. Handing my sister truths I'd been too afraid to speak.
"You didn't have to do that." My voice came out rough, barely a whisper. "Sit with her. Tell her about your parents. You didn't have to?—"
"Yeah." He was looking at me with that expression that made my chest ache. "I did."
"Why?"
The question hung between us. The hallway was dark except for the thin line of light under Mia's door. I could hear the house settling around us—the creak of old wood, the distant sound of wind against windows.
Liam was quiet for a long moment. I braced myself for a deflection, a joke, something to break the tension the way he always did.
Instead, he said, "Because she's yours. And that makes her mine too."
My breath caught.
"This was supposed to be fake." My voice broke on the last word—the word that had been echoing in my head for weeks, haunting every dinner and every morning and every moment I caught myself wanting things I wasn't supposed to want.
His eyes met mine in the darkness. For a long moment, he didn't speak, and I braced for the answer I was afraid of. That it was still fake for him. That I was alone in this. That I'd made the mistake I swore I'd never make, the one Mom made over and over, falling for someone who couldn't catch her.
Then he reached for me.
His hand cupped my face, his palm warm and rough against my cheek. I could feel the calluses from ranch work, from rope and wood and all the physical labor he did without complaint. Real. Solid. Here.
"It stopped being fake for me," his voice rough, barely above a whisper, "somewhere around the first time you fell asleep on the couch and I couldn't stop watching you breathe. Maybebefore that. Maybe the night you showed up with two beers and didn't ask questions."
I couldn't breathe. Couldn't move. Could only stand there with his hand on my face and his words landing in all the empty places I'd tried so hard to protect.
"I've been terrified to say it," he continued. "Terrified you'd leave when the year was up. That this was just survival for you. Just strategy. That I'd tell you how I felt and you'd look at me like I'd broken the rules, like I'd ruined everything?—"
"It's not." The words came out fierce, certain, surprising me with their force. "It stopped being just anything a long time ago."
I didn't know which of us moved first. Maybe both. Maybe neither.
But suddenly the distance between us vanished, and his mouth found mine in the dark.
I wasn’t sure when it started.
One moment, his face was close—too close to be accidental—and then his mouth was there. Not planned. Not announced. Just happening.
I didn’t register the question in it until later. The hesitation. The almost-pause.
By the time I caught up, my hands were already twisted in his shirt, pulling him in, anchoring myself to something solid.
Whatever uncertainty there had been dissolved before it could form into words.
We were kissing.
He kissed me like I was something both fragile and essential, like he hadn’t known what he was waiting for until it was suddenly in his hands. Like a breath he’d been holding without realizing it.
I kissed him back without thinking. Without deciding.
Just… there.
