He doesn’t answer yet, just slips the pen from my fingers and walks over to the wall, using the surface to write something on the paper.
As he returns, he says, “Do you want to be my best friend?andDo you love me?” A slow smile stretches across his face as he turns the paper to show me his answer. “They feel like the same question when it comes to you.”
The note is blurry through my tears, but I can see a green heart sitting over the yes box and beside that he’s writtenthoroughly and enthusiastically, a callback to how he told me he wanted to kiss me.
The joy of his reply cracks me wide open, all the contents of my heart spilling out in the best way.
I grab the paper, and Theo tucks the pen in his pocket to cup my face. “That little boy got so lucky. Once-in-a-lifetime lucky.”
“Maybe notthatlucky. She’s kinda mean sometimes.” I try to laugh, but it comes out watery.
“And he loves every second of it. Wouldn’t trade it for anything.” His lips pinch and his voice dips into something sad. “Iwish I could offer you this perfect version of myself, trauma-free and healed. You deserve that.”
I tip my head back, needing to see his eyes when I tell him, “You don’t have to be healed to be loved. You don’t have to carry all that alone. Ilove you just the way you are.Youdeservethat.” Something seems to shift inside him. A broken breath stutters out and he melts against me. “Healing doesn’t have to happen before we love each other. It gets to happenbecausewe do. We can walk that path together.”
He searches my face. “You love me?”
“A truly maddening amount,” I whisper.
Leaning in, he brushes his lips over my forehead. “That’s the perfect amount, actually.”
I curl myself into his arms, our notes tucked together in my hands. The echoes from the crowd outside fade away as his heartbeat hammers in my ear.
“I heard it’s the dimples and the bitable forearms,” he murmurs.
“Those definitely.” I look up at him. “But also your friendship. Your big heart and the way you make me laugh even when I think I don’t want to.”
He presses a kiss to the top of my head, my temple, my cheek. “Am I allowed to kiss you?”
I nod eagerly. “I really wish you would. I’m dying here.”
“Seems like apt punishment for what you do to me.”
When he brings his lips to mine, something unfurls inside me. It’s a slow, gentle pressure, warm and comfortable and everything I’ve been missing. A hum of pleasure pours out of me as his palm slides over the side of my neck, and I lean into it, tilting to deepen the kiss. He takes advantage, tightening his grip and devouring me, a hot, desperate moan pooling in the back of his throat.
I’m seconds away from jumping up into his arms and begging him to press me against the wall when his phone goes off. He keeps kissing me, like nothing else in the world matters, but a loud ruckus outside the shop brings me back to my senses.
I pull away, and his mouth falls to my throat. “Theo, we have to go.”
“Mm-hmm.” He lazily trails his lips over my collarbone. “My freckle demands attention,” he says, kissing the spot.
“I promise we’re going to pay a whole lot of attention to eachother later. In fact, I insist,” I tell him as he wraps his arms around my waist. “But right now, there are a bunch of animals that need adopting.”
That seems to break him out of his spell. He lifts his head, kiss-bitten and dreamy-eyed and blissed-out. “Come with me. Idon’t know if I can let you out of my sight today.”
Once our notes are safely tucked away, he slips my hand in his and we walk toward the exit. Looking back, I cast another glance over the space that will house Gramps’s bookshop one day.Ourbookshop.
He may not be here to see it, but he’ll be in every decision and every corner of the space, and I can’t wait to bring it to life for both of us.
We stop at the back door. Theo tips my chin up, his eyes tracing my features. He studies me, touches me, like I’m something precious to him. Like I always have been.
“You know what this means?” I ask.
“That I get to leave a lot more stuff around the A-frame?”
I roll my eyes playfully. “Yeah, but something else.”
“That you get all the red Starburst forever?”
