Fear.
Fear that she won’t stop hurting if she doesn’t leave.
“I don’t want to leave,” she murmurs, her voice a little uneven now. “I want to be here, near Mama and Torch.”
That part makes sense.
“And you,” she adds in a whisper.
My heart fucking stutters. Like it forgets how to beat for a second before slamming back to life, hard enough to hurt. Fighting down ripples of undeserved joy and excitement.
“That’s a major turnaround.” I try to joke, but there’s an edge to it. Something too tight. Too hopeful.
“Yeah,” she mutters. “You’ve been behaving.”
A broken laugh slips out of me, wet and shaky. I press my face into her hair for a second, trying—and failing—to get my shit together.
Because fuck, I don’t think I can survive her walking away from me again. So I tighten my arms around her without thinking.
She squeaks. A tiny, indignant sound that leaves stupid flutters in my chest.
“Sorry,” I mumble quickly, but I’m already smiling.
“So close.” She sighs dramatically. “You were so close on that behaving streak.”
I press a kiss to the top of her head. “I’ll behave from now on, baby.”
“Baby?” She snorts. “I’m a grown woman,hammerhead.”
I don’t even freeze this time.
Hammerhead?
A laugh rips out of me before I can stop it, my shoulders shaking against her. “Where the hell did that come from?”
But I know the answer.
She just huffs, like she regrets nothing.
God, I missed this. Her giving me ridiculous nicknames that I can never predict, even if my life depended on it.
I pull her back just enough to look at her, my hand coming up to cup her cheek. My thumb brushes under her eye, slow and careful, like I’m still learning the shape of her.
Without thinking, I blurt out the words I’ve kept caged in my chest for the past week. “I’m so in love with you,” I say quietly.
The words sit heavy between us.
“Enough to let you go—if you want to,” I tell her, my chest tightening.
Her eyes soften, something flickering there.
I can’t help but lighten her mood when her face crumples slightly. “But not enough to not use you as my personal stress ball.”
That does it. Her expression drops to a black stare.
“Theo.”
I point at her face immediately. “That. You keep calling me that and I’m gonna start getting ideas, Ms. Hayes.”
