Theo scoffed, “Of course not. That’s reductive of the growth that you and I have gone through. I wasn’t a good partner to Matteo and Aria in the first few years after leaving the FBI, and I definitely wouldn’t have been a good partner for you at the time. And you? Guppy, you do realize that you finally stood up on your own two feet separate from me. You’ve become one of the bureau’s top agents in only seven years.”
Theo’s hands left my shoulders, and he cupped the back of my neck, “Look, I don’t know if things would have been any different had you stayed, but I do know that I’m tired of the past having a death grip on the people in this house. Whether it’s with Hezekiah Jordan, or the five years in between the end of our relationship and today. It’s time to stop letting the past get in our way.”
He was right and so was Aria, life was too short to get stuck in the past.
Mustering up all of the courage that I could, and with my heart thudding wildly in my chest, I leaned in and kissed the man in front of me. Theo was clearly taken by surprise, judging by the sudden inhale and the fluttering of his thick blonde eyelashes. His grip on the back of my neck tightened as he pulled me firmly against him until our bodies molded together.
This kiss wasn’t like the ones that we’d shared during his rut last week. Those had been angry, biting, and instinct-driven. Lust had gotten the better of us then, and we’d crashed together like a sailboat hitting a rocky coastline, destined to sink into the depths of the ocean.
This kiss was slow, soft, and Theo’s fingers had softened until they were kneading at the knots that had formed in my neck from a long and stressful day.
I broke away from the kiss, not wanting to wait one more second to say the words that I’d wanted to stay for five years—hell, longer than five years, because I’d never even had the courage to say them when we were dating the first time around.
“Theo, I’m not going to punish myself anymore. I have no idea what tomorrow holds for any of us. I love you.” I’d always thought that when you told someone that you loved them for the first time that it would be, I don’t know, more dramatic? I was half expecting a cheesy Pat Benatar song to start playing softly in the background or something.
Rather than the bugling of trumpets, I got something much better. Instead, Theo’s face broke into the happiest smile that I had seen since I’d crash-landed back into his life over three weeks ago.
“I love you too, Jacob Collins.” He kissed my forehead, my nose, both of my cheeks and, finally, my lips again.
“No take-backs.” He said between kisses, “no freaking out and trying to withdraw from me.” Kiss. “Andif we do this,” He paused his kisses to look at me with all the seriousness that he could muster. “That’s it, you’re one of us. Forever, Guppy. You understand that right?”
If you had told me a month ago that I would be committing to be a part of Pack Simmons permanently, I would have recommended that you should get a psych eval. But now, as we stood together in Theo’s dim office, I couldn’t help the grin that broke out over my face.
“Forever.” I easily agreed, the weight of the past five years finally evaporating from my shoulders. Suddenly, the possibility of forever didn’t seem so scary anymore.
CHAPTER 31
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It had been twenty-four hours since my identity had been revealed for the entire world(well, the greater metropolitan area of San Francisco, at least)to gawk at, and I was still having trouble getting back to my usual sarcastic, peppy self. Matteo and Aria had taken me upstairs and surrounded me with purrs and soft words, telling me that everything was going to be okay and that they wouldn’t let anything happen to me. At the time, it had worked and I’d finally been able to fall into a dreamless sleep between the two of them.
This morning, however, as I stood in the kitchen and gripped the edge of the kitchen sink with white knuckles and a blank stare down the drain...I knew that the emotional fallout from yesterday was far from over.
All I wanted to do was to bake a loaf of french bread, or to make pasta or even put together a fucking salad. To dosomethingthat was normal, something that was typical for me to do. Normal Tibby tried new recipes or new hobbies. Normal Tibby cracked jokes or sang along to whatever was playing on the radio. Normal Tibby didn’t get stuck on things she couldn’t control.
I definitely wasn’t feeling like a normal Tibby right now.
