Page 25 of Dead…Serious About You
“And I don’t drive two hours at nine o’clock at night for situational.”
The air between us shifts in nothing more than a blink. This is choice, not necessity. It’s not survival or shared liability.
Choice.
“You didn’t call,” I croon.
“I wanted to show up,” he says. “There’s a difference.”
There is, very much so. Without breaking eye contact, I step back from the doorway as an invitation.He takes it, and suddenly, the house doesn’t feel haunted anymore. It feels whole again, like it was waiting for him all along. Stopping directly in front of me, he’s close enough that I can feel the heat emantating off his person.
“You sure?” he asks softly. He isn’t looking at me like like I owe him anything. There’s no pressure in it, just space.
Space for me to decide.
I think about the staircase, the pit, the steam curling around us in the shower. The way he never once made me feel like I was something that needed fixing. I think about the police standingon this porch, about the silence these last few days and how loud it was without him in it.
And I realize something unwavering and certain has taken root beneath all the chaos.
“Yes,” I affirm wholeheartedly.
This time, when he pulls me into him, it isn’t frantic or born from catastrophe. It’s intentional,real. His mouth finds mine like he’s been waiting for it, kissing me like his life depends on it, and when I kiss him back, there’s no confusion in it.
Lance is missing, the future still unwritten. And while everything leading up to this moment might’ve been a mistake—Crew isn’t.
Some choices ruin you.
Some set you free.
But either way, I’m dead serious about him.
THE END
