“Yes, seriously,” I assure him, my voice soft. “I’m ready to risk it all with you, Matteo.”
His expression warms and he stares back at me, his gaze unwavering, resting on mine with nothing but tender adoration. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” I say, the intensity of his eyes filling me to the brim with something I’ve never truly felt with anyone before.Love.I pull his face closer to mine, his mouth but a breath away. “I am.”
And then his lips find mine… just as they always have a habit of doing.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
MATTEO
“My life before Clara felt so insignificant now. The present moment with her was all I ever wanted.” - Julian Hart, Painted Inferno
Soft light spills into the room from the morning sun. I slowly lift my eyelids, lying still as I breathe deep, filling my lungs with oxygen and the scent of her. It’s quiet and calm and I feel the warmth of her against my right side.
My left-hand throbs as my body begins to wake up and I raise my arm, inspecting the splint wrapped around my hand and half of my forearm. Instinctively, I flex my fingers and a sharp, hot pain shoots up my arm.
“Shit,” I mutter under my breath, wincing from the sensation. The splint is bulky and awkward, weighing my arm down. I broke my wrist when I was a kid, but it’s been years since I’ve had anything like this happen.
Thankfully the X-rays showed it was a clean break. They splinted it in the emergency room and scheduled an appointment for me to see ortho next week. They wouldn't cast it because of the swelling, so hopefully ortho will be able to cast it next week.
I don’t know how long I’ll be out with a broken hand, although if the internet proves to be right, I’m looking at a minimum of six weeks for healing.
Coach is going to kill me. I’m lucky we still won the game even after the shit I pulled.
The warmth beside me shifts and she exhales, groaning softly. I pull my gaze away from the window on the left side of my room to look at Jade nestled against my side. The blankets are pulled up to her chin, just the way she likes it.
Her arm tightens a bit around my ribs, her fingers curling against my skin. She lets out another deep breath, stirring in her sleep. Her hair is strewn across the pillowcase and I take a mental picture of her like this.
I’ve seen her in my bed plenty of times now, but never like this. Never waking up next to me as my girlfriend.
Holy shit.
She looks peaceful, like this is exactly where she belongs… because it is.
In a way, it almost feels surreal how the last twenty-four hours went down. The quiet settles around us and I listen to the sound of her breathing while she’s still asleep, letting my mind run through last night.
When Gabe pulled up in front of the hospital, I was already out the door before he put it in park. It’s a wonder I didn’t fall face first onto the blacktop and end up breaking another bone.
They were already expecting me and had a bay waiting, but I only had one thing on my mind. Jade. I needed to see her. I needed to make sure she was okay—and thank God she was.
I don’t know what I would have done if she hadn’t been.
I refused to leave her room until she was discharged, and even after that, I insisted she come and wait with me until I was able to leave. She didn’t argue. She explained POTS and what it means moving forward while we waited for the X-ray results.
Jade stirs again, pulling me from the remnants of last night. Her eyelashes flutter and she lifts a lid, cracking it open as she squints at me.
“Are you watching me sleep?”
A smile cracks across my lips. “What if I am?”
She smiles back, her arm tightening around me as she lets her eyelids fall shut again. “I can’t stop you.”
“I’ll stop if you don’t like it.”
She shakes her head, burying her face against my chest. “No, I do.”
“I was afraid I’d wake up this morning and last night would have been all a dream,” I say after a moment, my chest constricting. “You’re still mine, right, Sunny?”
