Despite everything, that made me grin. “Noted.” It wasn’t that long, but I’d let the top grow a little longer than usual.
She tugged gently in mock reprimand, and I closed my eyes, letting the sensation wash over me. Her fingers. Her warmth. The quiet intimacy of this moment that had nothing to do with sex and everything to do with something deeper.
I could marry this girl.
The thought hit me like a blindside check, stealing the air from my lungs. I went rigid, my eyes snapping open as the realization ricocheted through me.
I could marry this girl.
Not someday, in the distant, abstract way people talked about marriage. Not as a possibility to be considered years down the road. I could see it—wantedit—with a clarity that terrified me. Coming home to her every night. Waking up beside her every morning. Building a life together, a family, the kind of stability I’d never had growing up.
I wanted all of it.
And that wanting was the most dangerous thing I’d ever felt.
Because it made me wonder if my father had ever felt this way about my mother. Before he’d destroyed her piece by piece with his wandering eye and his broken promises.Before he’d proven that wanting something didn’t mean you were capable of keeping it.
Men as handsome as us have responsibilities to never settle down.
What if he was right? What if this feeling in my chest—this desperate, consuming love—was just the first step toward becoming everything I’d sworn I’d never be?
“Hey.” Ava’s voice pulled me back. Her fingers had stilled in my hair, and when I looked up, her eyes were searching my face. “Where’d you go?”
“Nowhere.” The lie tasted bitter on my tongue.
She didn’t call me on it, but I could see she didn’t believe me. That was the thing about Ava—she always saw through my bullshit, even when we were kids.
“I love you,” I said instead of explaining. The words came out rough, almost desperate. “You know that, right?”
Her expression softened, some of the worry easing from her features. “I know. I love you too.”
I reached up to cup her face, pulling her down for a kiss that was more about reassurance than passion. Her lips were soft against mine, gentle, and when we broke apart, she pressed her forehead to mine.
“Whatever’s going on in that head of yours,” she whispered, “you can tell me. When you’re ready.”
“I know.” And I did know. Ava wouldn’t judge me. She wouldn’t run. She’d stay, the way she always stayed, even when I’d given her every reason not to.
I’d never feared her running from me.
It was the other way around that made me break out in a cold sweat.
But I wasn’t ready to voice the fear that was clawing at my insides. Wasn’t ready to admit that my father’s shadowstill loomed over everything, even now. Even when I was lying in the arms of the woman I loved.
The woman I could marry.
The thought circled back, persistent and terrifying.
I settled my head back in her lap, and after a moment, her fingers resumed their path through my hair. She picked up her textbook with her free hand, returning to her studying like having a six-foot-three hockey player sprawled across her bed with his head in her lap was perfectly normal.
Ava’s fingers found a particularly good spot at the base of my skull, and I let out a low sound of contentment that made her laugh.
“Like a big cat,” she teased.
“Shut up.”
“Make me.”
I cracked one eye open. “Don’t tempt me, Sunshine. I’m trying to let you study.”
