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My arms fall forward, but I don’t move away. I just stand there, feeling the press of his mouth, the lingering weight of him, the way he stays close like he’s keeping something for himself even in the quiet. Before I can move, his hands slide from my wrists to my hips—steady, certain—and he pulls me back into him.
I straighten, my spine meeting the heat of his chest, and he fits himself around me without leaving me, arms wrapping low and sure. His head dips, his lips pressing to the space between my shoulder blades again, lingering there like he’s not just kissing skin but breathing something into me.
“Look,” he murmurs, voice rough but quiet. My eyes lift to the mirror, and what stares back is no longer the wrecked, wild mess from moments ago—still raw, but steadier, grounded in the way his arms hold me. He’s not afraid I’ll slip away. We both know I won’t.
For a moment, he just watches me in the mirror, his mouth close enough to my ear that his breath blurs a faint patch of glass.
“You know,” he says, voice low and certain, “I get it now.”
“Get what?” I ask, though my voice barely makes it past my throat.
His tattooed hand slides over my belly, fingers spread like he’s staking claim to ground left barren too long. “A garden that won’t bloom.”
Instinct has me reaching for his hand, but he catches mine mid-motion, threading our fingers together and locking us there—so in the reflection, there’s no mistaking his hold.
“Baby,” he murmurs, guiding our joined hands up to press firm over my heart, “I’m going to help you plant something here so fierce it’ll root in your bones, wind through every hollow place, and strangle the emptiness. When it blooms, it’ll be wild enough to spill from you like it was always meant to—and you won’t ever forget whose hands helped sow it.”
For a long beat, there’s nothing but our reflection and the steady thrum of my heartbeat under our joined hands. His chest is a wall of heat at my back, his breath steady against my ear, every word he just spoke still settling deep.
In the mirror, my face shifts—small, unguarded—but he sees it. His mouth tips, not into a smile, but into something knowing.
I swallow hard, my fingers tightening around his. “I love you.”
His gaze locks on mine in the glass, and for a second, his jaw works like he’s holding something back. When he answers, it’s low, steady, and certain—weighted like it’s been a long time coming. “I know, Lou. I’ve always fucking known that.”
“Good.” I didn’t need him to say it back—I needed to hear me say it.
He unthreads our hands, his palm gliding back down over my stomach while his other arm cinches tighter around my waist, holding me there like he’s not done—but not yet ready to move either.
He dips his head, pressing his mouth to the side of my neck. The kiss is slow, lingering, more a claim than a comfort. In the mirror, I see his eyes close for a beat before he looks up again, gaze locking on mine.
With that same unshakable certainty, he says, “Now let me make sure you don’t ever forget it.”
But he doesn’t move. He just holds me there, the heat between us thick as summer air, the next moment balanced like a seed in the dark—ready to split, ready to take root.
Chapter Thirty
I BET YOU LICK COUCH CUSHIONS TOO
LOUISIANA
Three months later
Three months out, and Henry’s still grumbling about how I robbed him of his eloping fantasy. He brings it up with that shit-eating grin, but underneath it, I can feel the sting. He wanted to claim me—loud, fast, and without apology. Hell, part of me wanted it too. Still does.
But I don’t regret putting the brakes on. Not one damn bit.
Because when Maddox and Evie brought Vivi home, everything shifted.
The second they stepped through that door with her bundled in pink, tiny fists waving like she was already claiming her place in the world, it hit me—we weren’t just building a life for the two of us. We were shaping one for all of us. For Dallas. For this messy, hard-earned, bruised-up kind of family we were trying to grow into.
The house was full—full of people, full of noise, full of all that messy, beautiful chaos that only happens when blood and chosen family collide. There was laughter echoing off the walls, someone passed around cheap champagne in Solo cups, and Aunt Joe wouldn’t stop cooing over the baby like she wasn’t the same woman who once knocked out a grown man for talking slick about her cooking.
And in the middle of it all stood Dallas.
Still. Quiet.
He held back like always, watching from the corner like he didn’t quite believe he belonged. His hands were stuffed in the pockets of that fraying hoodie Aunt Joe patched up twice already, and his eyes—those guarded, too-old-for-his-face eyes—were locked on the bundle Maddox held like it was something too delicate to be real.
