The comments combust.
-HELLO SIR
-BIRD BOY HAS ENTERED THE CHAT
-support group LMAO
-his VOICE???? Rawwwwwrrrrrrrrrrr
I can feel my brain shorting out. “OK, I love you guys,” I tell them, “but I need to actually talk to this man without a live studio audience. So I’m gonna… yeah.”
I end the live. The app immediately starts pinging with notifications like a slot machine on steroids, so I jab my phone onto vibrate and toss it onto the console table, then step back to let Jacob in.
For a moment, we just stand in the hallway looking at each other.
The corner of his mouth twitches. “May I… come in properly?”
“Yeah. Yeah, of course.” I step aside. “Sorry. My brain’s doingcartwheels.”
He toes off his shoes neatly by the door and follows me back into the living room. The twins are still just soft white noise on the monitor.
Jacob stops in the middle of the room, hands curling and uncurling at his sides. “I didn’t mean to ambush you,” he says. “I was watching your live and I thought… ‘This is a conversation I should be part of.’ So I drove over.”
My heart does something stupid and swanlike.
“Are you mad?” I ask, trying for lightness.
He shakes his head. “No. Not at all. I’m… glad you felt able to talk about it. Even if the medium was rather public.”
“You saw the whole thing,” I say slowly. “The meltdown monologue. The part where I was like, ‘I might have to break up with this man I really like because I’m down bad for him’.”
His jaw flexes. “Yes. I saw that bit.”
“And you’re still here?”
He gives me one of those small, serious smiles that feel like they’re just for me. “Of course I’m still here.”
Emotion claws up my throat again. I push my hands through my hair and laugh shakily. “You picked a hell of a moment to decide you’re OK with change, Bird Boy.”
He takes a breath, steadying himself, then meets my eyes full-on. There’s a steadiness there that wasn’t, before. A new thread of self-possession.
“That’s the thing,” he says. “I don’t like change when it’s forcedupon me. When it’s someone else deciding my routine, my environment, my life, without my consent. That makes me feel… trapped. Unsafe.”
He steps closer, slowly enough that I can step away if I need to. I don’t.
“But this?” His voice goes softer. “Choosing to change somethingbecause I want to? Because the alternative is losing you? That’s different.”
My breath catches.
“The change I really don’t want,” he continues, “is being without you. So if it comes down to the stability of my current life, or spending that life with you, I choose you. Every time. No hesitation.”
My knees actually wobble. “Jacob,” I say, hoarse.
He swallows, but he holds my gaze. “You said on your live that you don’t want to make decisions for me. So let me make this one. Staying in Foxton, in my little house, going to the office three times a week, cooking the same three dinners in rotation…” There’s a hint of a smile. “That’s comfortable and familiar. But it’s not the same as beingalive. Not like being with you feels.”
I stare at him. My brain is still trying to wrap itself round the idea.
“But your job,” I manage. “Your routines. Your -”
