He stopped. Breathed. Started again.
“If he had known for one second that you mattered to me, he would have come for you. He would have made your life hell just to watch me react, because that was the game.” His eyes pooled with regret. “I told them you were nobody because if they believed it, they would leave you alone.”
My breath caught. To say I’d never imagined this would be an understatement.
The story I’d carried for seven years cracked down the middle, light bleeding through a place I’d kept sealed shut.
“I kept you secret because you were the only thing in my life that felt real.” His voice cracked slightly. “The only thing that wasn’t performance or obligation or my father’s expectations. Being with you felt like breathing after holding my breath for years, and I would have let every one of those friendships burn before I let them put their filthy eyes on you.”
Something broke open in my chest—a locked door I’d been guarding for seven years, suddenly swinging wide.
“I was a coward, I asked you to be mine because graduation was already approaching,” he said. “I thought it was safer that way.” His eyes met mine—raw, stripped bare. “And you said no. And I have spent every day since trying to understand what I did wrong.”
“We lost seven years,” I whispered, the words coming out broken. “Over a conversation I wasn’t supposed to hear.”
“Over me being too much of a coward to just tell you the truth.”
“Over me being too proud to ask why.”
I was crying now. Jack reached for me, pulling me against his chest, and I went willingly, collapsing into him because holding myself together was suddenly impossible.
“I’m so sorry,” he murmured against my hair. “I’m so goddamn sorry.”
“I thought you were ashamed of me.”
“I was terrified of losing you.” His arms tightened.
We held each other while the morning light strengthened beyond the windows. His heartbeat was steady beneath my ear. My tears soaked into his skin.
When I finally pulled back, my face was a disaster and my eyes were swollen and Jack was looking at me like I was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.
“It was completely my fault.” He wiped my cheeks with his thumbs. “Can I make it up to you?”
“How?”
“Well.” His mouth curved. “I was thinking we could start with me never letting you doubt how much I want you ever again. Then maybe work our way up to me spending the rest of my life proving I’m not a complete idiot.”
“That’s a long-term plan.”
“I’m good at long-term plans.”
I kissed him. Tasted salt and morning and all the lost time we could never get back. He kissed me back slowly, his hands cradling my face with a gentleness that made fresh tears spill over.
“I’m here now,” I whispered.
“You’re here now,” he repeated, like he was letting it become true.
When he eased me back against the pillows and followed, his weight settling over me—warm and solid, there was no urgency driving us. No years of hunger catching fire. Just the two of us relearning each other in the grey morning light—slow, thorough, mapping every response with careful attention.
His mouth traced the line of my throat so slowly I forgot how to breathe. I arched into him and he made a sound low in his chest, and when he finally moved inside me it felt less like sex and more like sealing a promise we’d finally figured out how to make.
After, we lay tangled in the aftermath—his heartbeat beneath my cheek, sunlight warming our skin, nothing between us but breath and quiet and the extraordinary feeling of having finally, finally stopped fighting.
The drive to the coast was almost an hour—winding roads that hugged cliffs, the city disappearing behind us until there was nothing but the Pacific, immense and glittering, stretching to the edge of the world.
“Where are we going?” I asked, watching the coastline unfold through the window.
“You’ll see.”
