‘Well,’ he says eventually. ‘That box is definitely ash.’
‘Was there ever really a box?’
‘Wet cardboard.’ He shakes with a quiet laugh.
I prop myself up on one elbow to look at him. In the dim light of his reading lamp, he looks younger and sweeter. The hard lines of his face have softened. He is smiling, a real smile, not the guarded one he wears for the world.
‘Hi,’ I say.
‘Hi.’
As if we’re meeting for the first time again. As if we’re starting over. Which we are, in a way.
He tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. ‘So you’re in my bed.’
‘True.’
‘And you’re naked.’
‘Always the observer.’ I stretch, arms above my head, lifting myself and letting the sheet pool at my waist.
‘And you came. Twice. I’m trying to process. That was…’
‘Oh, it was. It definitely was.’
‘Ava.’
‘Mm?’
‘I need you to understand something.’ He waits until I find the courage to look at him. ‘This wasn’t scratching an itch. You asked if you could sit next to me. Asked permission to take up space in an empty cinema.’ He dusts his lips across mine. ‘Now you walked into my room all on your own. You know why? Because you don’t need to ask. Not anymore. You know you belong here. You belonged with me the moment you put that finger to your lips.’
The pressure behind my lids stings until tears make my vision swim.
His index finger catches under my eye. ‘Hey. Why?—’
‘No one has ever said that I belong with them. Not in twenty-four years.’
His expression turns fierce. ‘Then everyone else was fucking wrong.’
I listen to his breathing. Sense the warmth of his skin on mine. There’s no word for what he is. Not boyfriend, not lover. No single fitting word for the man who carried me across ice and waited until I was ready for him.
I curl into Scottie, and there’s no fear, no complications, no shadow looming.
But if… If this goes up in flames – if he decides I’m too much drama, too fresh from disaster…
I bury my nose closer into the crook of his neck.
‘What’s the matter?’
‘Nothing.’ I lie because the truth has always cost me.
‘You literally went stiff in my arms.’
Damn him for always noticing everything.
‘I’m okay. I’m…thinking.’
‘About?’
