“You’re just so… sweet,” she says haltingly.
Not exactly what I wanted to hear, but honestly, I’m just happy she’s not crying anymore.
But sweet?
Ouch. I don’t think that’s what I want to be known for. Not with her, anyway.
“Sweet,” I repeat slowly when she doesn’t say anything else.
Yeah, still not a fan of that one.
“It’s a compliment,” she says softly. “I’m not used to men being sweet. Or kind. Or…” She shakes her head, shifting her focus to the end table beside the couch. “There’s always been something nefarious wrapped in the silken words. Love bombing. Presents and experiences as a kind of reparation for awful behavior. Sometimes, it’s hard to trust this.” Her eyes find mine again. “Us.”
That word hits me right in the gut, that bone-deep knowing I’ve had since the moment I first saw her settling deeper and gaining weight, grounding me in this moment. Grounding our future.
Us.
“I like that word,” I share. “I want us to be an ‘us’, Holly. But we don’t have to rush this. I’m not going anywhere. We don’t have to rush anything. I get that you’ve been hurt before. Hell, I have too.”
I tell her about how I’d married my high school sweetheart right before I left for basic training. How it had seemed like the right thing at the time, the next logical step in our relationship. How I’d thought I’d loved her, and how she’d left me for someone else less than two years later while I was deployed.
“Trust is something that is earned,” I share. “I don’t expect you to trust me overnight, especially with everything you’ve been through. But I hope you’ll give me the opportunity to earn your trust, Holly. I hope you’ll let me love you like you deserve to be loved.”
“Love?” she chokes out, her eyes bright with unshed tears.
I nod, smoothing her hair behind her ear with my fingertips. “I know it seems fast, but that doesn’t make it any less true. I’ve lived a lot of life, and I know what love is.”
“Like your ex-wife?” The confusion in her voice guts me, but I can see why she’d ask that.
“My first marriage wasn’t out of love, Holly. It was out of convenience, maybe even a sense of obligation, but I didn’t see it that way at the time. Neither of us did. At the end of the day, we were just two kids playing at being grownups. Friends who should have stayed friends. I thought I loved her, and I did, but not in a mature way. Not in aforever way.”
She gasps, tensing, and I know I’ve stepped in it with her again.
“I’m not asking you for forever right now, Holly.” Though Lord knows I want to. She’s not ready for that though, not yet. Not by a long mile, unfortunately. “I’m asking for the chance to let this thing that’s wanting to grow between us unfurl and blossom. That can take however long it takes, and look however it needs to.”
“I’m scared,” she admits softly. “I want you, Jake. I want to be with you, and I’m also scared to let myself have you. To trust this. Trust you.”
Her words undo me. The raw honesty in her voice, the heartache and longing. I want to soothe all of it. Kiss it away.
“God, I want to kiss you right now,” I breathe. “You’re so damn brave, Holly. I hate that you’ve been hurt before, and I get that’s made you scared. But believe me, babe, I’m nothing like your ex, and have no intention of doing that to you.”
There’s a furrow between her blonde brows as she nods, and I wish I could caress it away, but I don’t want to spook her.
The fact that she hasn’t pulled away from me is huge, and it’s not lost on me that she’s still sitting astride my lap, letting me touch her and rest my palm against her lower back. Her mind may still be struggling with the idea of us, but her body has already decided, and I take comfort in that knowledge.
“Goddess,” she whispers, and I chuckle.
I’ve heard her say that before and have deduced that she’s probably referencing some kind of Earth Mother archetype,which is cute as hell, and completely suits her. I take it in a different direction though, not interested in talking theology right now.
“You are.”
She cocks her head to the side, giving me a confused look.
“You’re my goddess, Holly. A gift from the divine that I want to worship every day, however you’ll let me.”
Zander would give me such shit if he heard me talking like this, but I can’t help it. It’s the truth. I bow to her beauty, her heart, her light. She’s the sun I didn’t know I needed. My true North.
“Something recalibrated in me the first time I saw you,” I share. “I knew we were meant to be in each other’s lives, and—”
