“Thank you,” I say after a minute.
“For what?”
“For today. For making this easy.”
He turns his head just enough that his cheek brushes my hair. “Moving three states’ worth of your life into my apartment was not easy.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I do.”
His voice is quieter when he speaks again.
“You never have to thank me for making space for you.”
The words hit somewhere deep.
I lift my head and look at him. “Grayson?—”
“I mean it.” He sets his takeout container down on the coffee table. “Harlow, you are not an inconvenience. You never were. You moving in here isn’t me doing you some huge favor. This is…” He glances around the apartment, at the boxes and blankets and evidence of me tucked into all the corners already. “This is what I want.Youare what I want.”
Emotion rushes up my throat so fast it almost hurts.
He notices, obviously.
“Oh no,” he says gently. “Don’t do that.”
I let out a watery laugh. “I’m not doing anything.”
“You’re getting tears in your eyes.”
“I told you, those don’t count if they’re happy.”
His mouth lifts. “Still tears.”
I set my food aside and crawl the few inches between us until I’m half in his lap, half tangled around him. His arms come around me immediately, no hesitation, no surprise. Like this too is muscle memory now. Like loving me has become instinct.
Maybe it has.
I press my face into his neck.
“You make it very hard not to marry you on the spot,” I mumble.
He goes still.
It’s so immediate that if I weren’t this close to him, I might’ve missed it. But I feel it—the subtle lock of his shoulders, the pause in his breathing.
I lift my head.
His expression is unreadable for exactly one second too long.
Then he smiles, but it’s a little crooked. “Good to know.”
I blink at him.
Interesting.
“Gray.”
