“Say it again.”
“I love you.”
“Again.”
“Gabriel—”
“Please.”
That did it. Not the word. The tone. His voice had shifted, quieter, rougher, stripped of the confidence he wore everywhere else. His hands were steady on her face, but his eyes weren’t. There was something unguarded there. Something that looked almost like fear.
He needed to hear it.
“I love you,” she said again, softer this time.
His exhale left him like he had been holding it. Then he kissed her, deep and urgent but controlled, as if he were steadying himself against her. “I was starting to worry,” he said against her mouth.
“About what?”
“That you’d never let yourself get here.”
“Here where?”
“With me.”
She looked at him for a long second. Really looked at him.
“I’m here.”
His exhale brushed her cheek. “I know that now. I just needed to hear it.”
She kissed him again. Slower this time. Certain. She let him guide her backward toward the bedroom and let herself stay present instead of calculating what it might cost. This was real. It felt steady. Not fragile. Not imagined.
“Stay.”
“For how long?”
“As long as you want.”
He studied her face like he was measuring the weight of that.
“That’s not a small thing.”
“I know.”
“Then I’m not going anywhere.”
Later, curled against him in the dark, she listened to the city humming beyond the windows.
“Gabriel.”
“Mm.”
She traced a line across his shoulder, quiet for a moment. “You know why we didn’t work the first time?”
He didn’t move. “We were kids.”
“We were scared.” She shifted onto her side to look at him. “We said what we thought the other person needed to hear. We left out the parts that felt risky.”
