Page 105 of Worth the Shot

Emma notices, of course.

“You were scared, Laney. It’s okay to feel vulnerable over something like that,” Emma says, gently.

She squeezes my hand once before settling back, giving me room. Jo is still vibrating like she’s on her third espresso IV drip, but even she senses this is…different. Tender in a way she usually bulldozes through. I pull my knees up to my chest, hoodie sleeves swallowing my hands, and out of nowhere Matt slips into my mind.

“It’s weird,” I say slowly, eyes fixed on a random thread in my blanket. “Because with Brennan…it feels like we built something, little by little. Inside jokes, stupid texts and late-night calls.” I pause, giving myself a second, because this feels bigger than anything I’ve admitted out loud in a long while. “And with Matt…” My throat tightens before I can stop it. “We skipped the foundation part. Went straight to sleeping together, sharing a bed but not a life.”

Emma nods gently. “You were partners, but not friends.”

“Exactly.” The word leaves my mouth like a confession. I pick at a loose thread on my cuff, the memory settling over me like a revelation. “With Matt, everything was fast and loud and…intense. But we didn’t talk about things that mattered. We didn’t laugh about stupid shit. He didn’t know how I took my coffee, but he knew exactly where I kept my lingerie and the vibrators.”

Jo winces. “Yikes.”

“Yeah.” I huff out a hollow laugh. “I thought that was enough. Or normal, or whatever. Until, I don’t know…I guess the day he left.” The room is silent, but not judging. Never judging. “And now,” I say, barely above a whisper, “I thought maybe I’d feel sadder about closing that chapter with him for good, but I don’t. Not even a little bit.” My eyes burn and I blink hard, refusing to let tears take me hostage. Not sad tears, but the revelation kind. The ones that come when everything hits at once. “And then I met Brennan and…I don’t know how to explain it. It felt like something in me clicked back into place. Like my heart was searching for him all along,” I admit.

“I think,” Emma says softly, “your heart was just waiting to beat like that again. Easily, you know?”

“And it’s about damn time,” Jo adds, wiping the corner of her eye like she’s pretending it’s an eyelash. “Screw Matt. He was a walking red flag dipped in charm.”

We all laugh because honestly? Maybe she’s right. Or maybe we were just two people trying to force something to work long after it stopped fitting the way it used to.

Either way, I don’t feel broken over it anymore, and maybe that’s the difference. Because when I think about Brennan, there’s no ache attached to it. No waiting for the other shoe to drop. No convincing myself to stay small enough to fit into someone else’s life.

Just him.

Steady. Certain. Mine.

I think back to the first night we met, when he called my attitude decorative without missing a beat, and I smile into his hoodie sleeve wrapped around my wrist. Any man capable of surviving my personality deserves some kind of award.

Unfortunately for Brennan, all he gets is my entire heart.

Chapter Forty-Three

Brennan

A whole week. That’s how long I’ve had to go without being able to kiss Delaney the way I’ve been dying to since the accident. And the second my face could move without threatening total destruction? You bet your ass I devoured her beautiful mouth like my life depended on it. But it’s been another week of recovery, and I can promise you—Brennan Hale is fully back, baby.

We just got home from having my stitches removed, and even though there’s nothing remotely sexy about the pink, jagged scar and the yellowing bruises swallowing half my face, I can’t wait any longer.

She’s sorting through her purse for something when I come up behind her and slide my hands over her shoulders, my thumbs pressing in just enough to make her feel it, and she leans into my touch on instinct, like it’s something her body knows before her brain can catch up. The soft sound that leaves her is half breath, half moan and it goes straight through me.

“In case I haven’t said it enough, Laney, thank you. For everything these last few weeks. I mean it.”

She turns to face me, and I swear, the way this woman looks at me makes something in my chest pull tight, like I’d give her anything she asked for without even thinking twice.

“I told you to stop thanking me,” she says, crossing her arms, her tone slipping into that bossy edge I know too well.

“I can’t help it,” I murmur, smiling as I let out an easy laugh, and the fact that it doesn’t hurt half as bad as it did two weeks ago feels like a win.

She watches me, no doubt noticing the same thing. Her eyes move over my face slowly, taking me in like she’s trying to memorize every inch of it, and the world goes quiet in that way it only ever does with her. She takes a step closer, her hand moving toward my face. I nod, slightly, giving her the permission she’s silently asking for. Her thumb brushes over the raw skin beneath my eye, careful, almost hesitant, and the second she touches me, I feel it everywhere. I shiver, and before she can pull back, before she can mistake it for pain, I reach up and take her hand, keeping it right where it is.

Her thumb lingers for a second longer, tracing the edge of the scar like she’s learning it, like she’s trying to understand what it means now that it’s part of me, and her eyes flick up to mine, searching, asking without words if this is still okay. I hold her gaze and I don’t move. I don’t pull away, and I might not even breathe.

And then she leans in.

She’s slow about it, careful and gentle in every way possible. Like she knows exactly how fragile this moment is, afraid of breaking something if she moves too fast, and the second her lips brush against the skin beneath my eye, everything in me goes completely still.

It’s not a kiss meant to tease.