Could it?
Tears made my vision blurry, but when I looked five inches ahead of my own feet, a pair of familiar, red canvas sneakers with holes in them swam into my vision.
“Kit?” I asked, looking up at him.
He dropped to his knees in front of me, hugging a manilla folder stuffed with papers to his chest.
“I umm. I came here to umm. Give you a slightly late Christmas present,” he said, chewing on his lip as he held the folder out to me. “At least, I hope you think of it as a present, perhaps you’ll… I… here. Sorry I didn’t have time to wrap it.”
He held the folder out to me, and I took it with trembling hands.
Kit was here.
He’d followed me.
He was handing me a stack of paperwork.
Had I fallen asleep? Was this some weird dream?
No. The pins and needles in my ass were real.
So Kit was real. Really here. Kneeling on the cold, probably filthy airport floor in front of me.
The paperwork was still a mystery, though.
“What, umm. What is it?” I asked, wary. What could he possibly be giving me?
“Umm. It’s the paperwork for disclaiming a title. I mean, it’s my copy of the paperwork. Yours now. My father has another, and he’s promised to file it for me in the morning. It means, umm. It means that as of midnight on New Year’s Eve, if I understand correctly, I will no longer be the Duke of Hartsworth. I’ll be plain old Kit. Always, forever. I won’t even be able to inherit Father’s title, you can’t pick and choose. It’s all or nothing.”
I blinked at him.
Then looked at the stack of papers in my lap.
The stack of papers that said I could keep Kit. Always.
“You... I... but...”
“Perhaps you’ll think I’m taking the coward’s way out, but I’m afraid I’ll always do that. I’m not a brave man, Andy. But I love you, and I was hoping that perhaps that would be enough.”
“Your mom’s gonna murder you,” I said.
“Possibly,” Kit agreed.
“Thisisbrave, Kit.” I curled my hands tight around the folder, heart swelling. “But you didn’t have to do this for me. I’m not sure Iwantyou to do this for me.”
“It’s for me,” Kit said. “It’s for me, because the only time in my life I’ve ever been uncomplicatedly happy is when you and I are just Kit and Andy. I don’t want to lose that, I don’t want to give that up. If, uh. If you can forgive me this one last time, I promise never to need forgiveness again.”
“You’ll need forgiveness again,” I said. “But I’ll always forgive you. And I need forgiveness, too. I shouldn’t have run away when you needed a friend.”
“You were understandably upset.”
“I was scared,” I said. “Scared of losing you. Scared of not being able to be what you needed. Scared that I could never fit into your world.”
“Youaremy world,” Kit said, eyes shining with tears. “I didn’t understand that until you left, not entirely. But given a choice between all of England itself and you, I would always choose you. I’d rather have you than anything else in the world.”
I hugged the papers to my chest as I slid onto the floor in front of him.
I could keep him. I couldkeep him.
