“I’m not sureweirdis the word you want there.”
He shrugs. “Insane? Unreal? Best thing that’s ever happened to me?”
I laugh. “That’s better.”
“Yeah, I thought so too.”
Then he kisses me, slow and smiling and familiar, and it feels like every version of us layered on top of each other at once—the anonymous messages in the dark, the impossible ache of wanting him in crowded rooms, the first time I let myself believe he might really stay, the first time he actually did.
When we finally pull apart, I rest my forehead against his.
“We should probably unpack,” I whisper.
“We absolutely should.”
Neither of us moves.
I smile. “Gray.”
He exhales dramatically. “Fine. But if I open one more box and find another candle, I’m staging an intervention.”
Three hours later, the kitchen is mostly done, my sweaters are in his dresser, and the rain has started up again in earnest, tapping softly against the windows.
We ordered takeout because neither of us had the energy to cook, and now we’re sitting on the floor with our backs against the couch, eating noodles out of cardboard containers while the lamp in the corner makes everything feel a little more cozy.
Figure skating coverage from some early-season event streams across the TV, because Grayson handed me the remote twenty minutes ago without asking what I wanted to watch andthen didn’t complain once when I picked this instead of sports analysis.
He’s gotten weirdly good at identifying jumps.
I glance over just as the skater on screen lands a combination, and he nods like he approves.
“That was underrotated,” he says.
I blink. “Excuse me?”
He shrugs and takes another bite. “A little.”
I narrow my eyes. “You need to stop absorbing my hobbies this aggressively.”
He swallows. “Counterpoint. No.”
“Counterpoint doesn’t work like that.”
He nudges my knee with his. “You love me.”
“I do,” I say, too fast to even pretend otherwise.
His eyes flick to mine, and that soft smile appears again. The one that still feels a little private, like it belongs more to us than anyone else.
“I know,” he says.
There was a time when those words would’ve terrified me.
Not because I didn’t feel it. Because I did. Too much, too fast, in ways I didn’t understand how to survive.
But now? Now it feels like the safest thing in the world, handing him my love and knowing he’ll hold it carefully. Knowing he always does.
I rest my head on his shoulder and watch the skater glide across the ice.
