“Years of suppressed emotion. It didn’t freak you out, did it?”
“No. Why would it?”
“I haven’t cried like that in a long time. Ever, maybe. I mean, I’m a crier by nature, but that was something else.”
“A crier by nature, huh? I’d never have guessed.” His smile was gentle, teasing.
“I spent far too many lunch breaks crying in bathroom stalls and supply closets.”
“Don’t forget every time I make you orgasm,” he pointed out dryly.
I mock glared at him. “What can I say, my emotions come out my eyes. This was . . .”
“A release. A long overdue release.”
“Yes.”
I took a deep breath, feeling lighter.
“You can take it back,” he said.
“Take what back?”
“Asking me to move in with you.”
“I don’t want to take it back,” I said. “I want to live together. I really do.”
He peered at me. “As long as you’re sure.”
“I’m sure.”
“Poet?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“I know,” I said.
“No. Listen. I’m. Not. Going. Anywhere.”
We stared at each other, his words filling the raw caverns my emotional devastation had left behind.
Asking Brooks to move in with me had nothing to do with panic that he’d actually leave. I knew he wouldn’t. I didn’t know how I knew, I just knew.
He was steady and sure.
Like roots. Like an unbroken promise. Like the dawn.
I lifted my leg off the carpeted floor and pulled up my pant leg and lowered my sock to show him my tattoo.
It was small. No bigger than a dime and nestled below my ankle bone.
His finger skimmed the ink.
“The four of us—Hadley, Salem, Wyn, and me. We all went to get tattoos together.”
“Matching?”
