Page 106 of While I’m Still Here

“Yes.”

Her breath shakes when she lets it out. “That's what I needed.”

The words are barely above a whisper.

Something changes.

Perhaps it’s been changing longer than I've admitted, and I've simply been pretending not to notice. Either way, I become acutely aware that Bea's hand is still against my bare chest and mine is covering it. My other hand remains near her face from wiping away the tear, and we're standing close enough that I can smell her perfume beneath the faint coffee on her breath.

I've been attracted to her for longer than is sensible.

Cancer is how we met, but it isn't why I like her. I like the woman who renamed me Marcus ‘pink fucking ribbon’ Bennett in her phone because I made the mistake of telling her I hated pink. I like the woman who can make an entire support group laugh and then call me at midnight because she needs someone who understands why she might miss the breast that's trying to kill her. I like that she's frightened and furious and refuses to turn either feeling into an inspirational lesson for anyone else's benefit.

Most dangerously, I like the tenderness she hides underneath all of it.

Bea's eyes drop to my mouth. Mine follow hers before I can stop them.

Fuck.

“Marcus?”

“Yes?”

“I think I want to kiss you.”

Being sensible becomes profoundly inconvenient.

Colin enters my mind immediately. I know enough to know he matters, even if I don't understand exactly what Bea and Colin have decided they are. The appropriate response would be to step away and button my shirt. Instead, apparently determined to make my own life more complicated, I ask, “Think?”

Her mouth twitches. “Don't ruin it.”

Then she kisses me. Or I kiss her. I'm not entirely certain who closes the final inch, and within seconds it doesn't seem particularly important.

It's soft. Almost cautious. Her hand stays against my scar while her mouth touches mine, and that combination nearly undoes me more effectively than anything more urgent could have. She has just looked at the part of my body that once made me wonder whether anybody would ever see anything except what cancer removed, and then looked at my face as though the answer was obvious.

She isn't kissing a breast-cancer survivor. She's kissing me. When she smiles faintly against my mouth, I know with absolute certainty that I'm in trouble.

We separate slowly, and Bea looks up at me, cheeks flushed and eyes still damp from earlier. “Well.”

A quiet laugh escapes me. “That's all you've got?”

“I had a better line prepared, but you kissed it out of me.”

“I thought you kissed me.”

“Details.”

I should regret it. I don't. Then reality catches up. “Your boyfriend.”

“Knows.”

I stare at her. “Knows what?”

“That I like you.”

It takes me a moment to process the wording. “Colin knows you like me?”

“Yes.”