He’d made me the small spoon.
And it was, without exaggeration, the safest I’d ever felt in my life.
“This okay?” he asked into my hair.
“So okay.”
His arm tightened around me, pulling me closer. I could feel his heartbeat against my back, steady and slow, and the warmth of his breath stirring my curls.
“Jacks?”
“Mm?”
“Thanks for being patient with me and not pushing. For letting me figure this out at my own speed.”
“You don’t have to thank me for that.”
“I do, though, because I know it can’t be easy waiting for someone to catch up to where you’ve been for years.”
I laced my fingers through his where they restedon my stomach. “You’re not catching up. You’re finding your own way. That’s different.”
He was quiet for a moment as his thumb traced slow circles on my palm.
“Can I tell you something?” he whispered.
“Always.”
“When you were, you know, earlier . . . on the couch . . .” He paused, and I could feel him choosing his words. “I had this thought. This really clear, really loud thought.”
“Yeah?”
“I thought: Oh.Thisis what it’s supposed to feel like.”
My breath caught.
“I don’t mean the physical stuff,” he continued, his voice barely audible. “It’s all of it, the laughing and the Thai food and the stupid jokes and the way you look at me like I’m . . . like I’m enough, just as I am. I’ve never felt that before. Not once. Not with anyone.”
I pressed his hand tighter against my chest, right over my heart, because I didn’t trust my voice.
“I think maybe that’s why it never worked with women,” he said, the words slow and careful, like he was testing their weight. “Not because anything was wrong with them. They were great, but something always felt like it was missing or like there wassome piece out of place I couldn’t identify. I thought that’s how it was for everyone, that the movies and romance authors were exaggerating to sell tickets or books or whatever.”
He pressed his face into my hair and sucked in a breath, as though he wanted to absorb every part of me into him.
“They weren’t exaggerating. I know that now,” he said. “I hadn’t found the right person who made me feel those things, who made fireworks go off in my head and thunder clap in my chest. I guess . . . shit . . . I don’t know anymore.”
A tear slipped free and disappeared into the pillow.
“Sky,” I managed.
“Yeah?”
“That might be the most beautiful thing anyone’s ever said to me.”
“I don’t know about all that. It’s just the truth. My truth, anyway.”
“I know, and that’s what makes it beautiful.”
His arm tightened around me once more, and I felt him press a kiss to the back of my head, soft and lingering.
