Well, I kissed him first. And then he kissed me back. And it was as if there’d never been any distance between us. It was aslow melt that I could still feel in every inch of my body. I could taste him. Smell him. Feel him. It was as natural as breathing.
I scrubbed a hand over my beard as the adrenaline slowly began to ebb away. Reality was left in its wake. My reality was the little girl asleep in her room upstairs. Aria was the center of my world. Every decision I made—every risk I took or didn’t take—it all circled back to her.
And Maverick… Maverick wasn’t just some new person drifting into my life. He was history. A beautiful, messy kind of history that blew apart both of our lives more than once. When we were good…fuck, we were good. But we hadn’t been able to figure out how to survive the bad times. Could we now?
I tipped my head back and blew out a slow breath.God, I wanted this.That was the problem. Wanting Maverick was inevitable. I wanted him when we were eighteen, I wanted him when we were twenty-three, I wanted him when we were twenty-nine, and I still wanted him now.
But it wasn’t just me I’d be risking if I did this. I had to remember that.
My fingers absently brushed over my lips, the ghost of a kiss still lingering there. Despite every practical thought demanding my attention, one quiet truth made itself known: I hadn’t felt this alive in a very long time.
“Daddy?” Aria’s little voice made me open my eyes. She stood at the bottom of the stairs, Sir Bites-a-lot in her arms. She rubbed her eyes and blinked unsteadily.
“Hey, little love,” I said as I pushed away from the door. “What are you doing up this late?”
“I had a bad dream,” she whispered. “Socks are awful.”
“Socks are awful,” I repeated slowly. Before I could reach her, she started back up the stairs all on her own.
“Socks are evil little things,” she grumbled under her breath. I trailed behind her up the stairs. She seemed so uninterested inme putting her back to bed that I gave her distance and waited to see what she did.I also had questions about the socks that I had a feeling I wouldn’t get the answer to.
When her door clicked shut, I paused. She didn’t wake up often, and when she did, it was a crapshoot whether she’d go back to sleep easily or if I’d have to sit with her for a few hours. I stood on the stairs in silence, just watching and waiting.
As I did, I took out my phone and texted Maverick.
Please let me know you get home safely.
Maybe it was a silly thing to ask, but I wanted to know he was safe.I needed to know he was.I sat down on the steps as I waited for his response, keeping one ear open for my daughter in case she needed me.
A date. That was the next step. It was a good thing. That was the one thing we hadn’t done much of over the years. We did a lot of emotional breakdowns and physical coping, but dates? We hadn’t done that. If I was going to plan one, it needed to be something simple—something that let us both focus on each other. We needed to talk and work out all the logistics of this.
My phone lit up with a single message from Maverick, and I smiled.
MAV: I’m home safe.
Good.
Sleep well, Mav.
MAV: You too, princess.
My smile widened as I realized we were doing this. We were really going to give this thing a chance.
CHAPTER 94
harley
With a frustrated sigh, I tossed another dress shirt onto the bed. It landed in a crumpled heap with the other five I’d already rejected. Apparently, owning an entire closet of clothes didn’t make it any easier to decide what to wear. I stared at the growing pile of shirts like they were personally responsible for my problem.
This was ridiculous. It was Maverick. If anything, he’d probably laugh at the idea that I was standing in my roomagonizing over what to wear. I could’ve shown up in my pajamas, and he wouldn’t have cared in the slightest.
But I cared.
Looking good had always been one of the few things I could control. When I looked good, I felt put together—like I had some kind of handle on the situation instead of being completely at the mercy of my own nerves. And tonight, of all nights, I needed to feel that way because this wasn’tjustdinner.
This was something else entirely. A turning point. A step into territory neither of us had expected. After everything we’d been through, everything we’d broken and rebuilt, tonight felt like the kind of moment that could shift the course of our lives. Again.
I needed to go into it with the right headspace. And that meant not looking like shit before I ever walked through the restaurant door.
