And just like that, the floor came out from under me.
I sobbed—ugly, shaking, loud—and he held on tighter. He was crying too; I could feel it in the tremor of his chest, the uneven way he breathed.
Around us, the crowd dispersed. A firm word from Hannah had everyone scurrying to the kitchen. But none of it mattered. I paid them no mind. It was just us. Me and him.
My fingers threaded through the hair at the back of his neck, the texture grounding me. He trembled against me, one hand clutching the back of my jacket like he couldn’t believe I was real either.
He pulled back again, just enough to look at me. His voice cracked. “You cut your hair.”
I laughed, or maybe it came out more like a gasp. “You grew a beard.”
His lips quirked—barely. “It’s terrible, isn’t it?”
“Awful,” I said, and the sound that escaped me was half a sob, half a laugh.
Then I kissed him.
It wasn’t graceful or cinematic. It was frantic and messy and too hard. The kind of kiss that didn’t know whether to beg or to blame. He caught my face between his palms like he couldn’t decide if he should pull me closer or apologize again. But I felt the moment he gave in. Sitting there on the concrete floor, he wrapped one arm around me as he pulled me closer. When I opened to him, he groaned and slipped a hand under the bottom of my shirt, his rough palm on the small of my back and Iwhimpered, desperate for this to be real. Not wanting to wake up if it wasn’t.
When we finally broke apart, my whole body was shaking. I pressed my forehead to his chest and listened to the wild rhythm of his heartbeat.
“Don’t you ever do that to me again,” I whispered.
His breath hitched above me. “Wasn’t part of the plan.”
I pulled back, just enough to look up at him again. “You’re really here.”
He nodded. His jaw trembled when he said it. “I’m home.”
That word cracked something deep in me—something I didn’t even realize I’d been holding together.
I didn’t know how long we sat like that, or how many tears I shed into the front of his shirt. All I knew was the feel of his arms around me, the weight of his body against mine, the sound of his uneven breathing and the smell of the man I’d already mourned once.
I’d thought seeing him would bring relief, joy, closure. But it didn’t. It just hurt. Beautiful, unbearable hurt. Because to feel him meant remembering what it was like to lose him.
He pressed a kiss to my forehead, soft and lingering. “You ok?”
I shook my head, laughing through the tears. “Not even close.”
He smiled—small, crooked, so heartbreakinglyhim.“Me neither.”
I leaned into him again, closing my eyes. For the first time in months, I let myself believe.
Chapter Thirty-Four
? Holly ?
I hadn’t expected it to feel so strange having him here. I’d always imagined this moment. The first night together, the sound of his voice echoing down a hallway, the way his eyes found mine in a crowded room. In my head it had always been cinematic. But real life was quieter. Softer. Awkward in the way grief never warned me about.
Jackson stood in the doorway of my apartment in Athens with his duffel slung over one shoulder, ready to retreat if I so much as blinked wrong. The air in my apartment felt too polite for him. No oil, no leather, no trace of the world he came from. His boots squeaked against the hardwood, loud in the stillness. He winced at the noise, like he was breaking something sacred. I stood frozen in the hallway, just staring at him. Part of me wanted to bolt; another part wanted to drag him inside and never let him leave again.
I didn’t even know what made me say it that night. We had been sitting outside the clubhouse when he admitted he couldn’t go back to that single-wide trailer with the ghost of a woman who’d forgotten him. Something in me wanted to revolt at the lost look in his eyes. Eyes that, before, had always been sharp as steel. Warm, cold. Kind, angry. But never lost. The words had come out before I could stop them.
“Move in with me.”
He’d stared at me like I’d spoken another language. “What?”
“Come live with me.”
