Her hand is tracing patterns on my chest. Absent, idle, like she’s thinking about something else.
“I should be scared,” she says quietly.
“Of what?”
“Of this. Of wanting something again. Of letting myself care about someone who might leave.”
“I’m not going to be gone long.”
“I know.” She props herself up to look at me. “I know you’re not going to disappear. I believe you. It’s just...” She sighs. “I’ve lost a lot. In a very short time. And my track record with men who make me feel things is not great.”
“I’m not Dario or Enzo.”
“No. You’re not.” She traces my jaw with her finger. “You’re something else entirely. Something I wasn’t expecting.”
“What were you expecting?”
“I don’t know. Someone who’d do the job and leave. Someone who wouldn’t buy me four kinds of chocolate chips because he was afraid I’d be disappointed.”
I laugh softly. “To be fair, I didn’t know which kind you’d want.”
“You didn’t know anything about baking. You went in completely unprepared.”
“I went in wanting to help. The rest was improvisation.”
She smiles. Leans down and kisses me again. “Stay,” she whispers against my mouth. “Tonight. Tomorrow. As long as you can.”
“I’ll stay.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
She settles back against me. Her breathing slows.
And I lie there in the dark, counting the hours until I have to leave, trying to figure out how to be someone who doesn’t.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
STEVIE
I’m pathologically bad at waiting.
Patience isn’t a virtue, it’s a delay tactic for cowards. I leap. I crash. I kiss people in stairwells and bake cookies for men who terrify me.
I follow men home like a stray cat with boundary issues. Make decisions with my hormones and let my brain file an appeal later.
But here, with Saul beside me, warm and solid and real, I don’t want to rush. I want to trap this moment in amber. Keep it like a weird emotional snow globe.
“You’re thinking loud,” he says quietly.
“I’m aware. It’s a design flaw. My brain’s the noisy upstairs neighbor of my life.”
“It’s not a flaw.” His hand finds mine under the covers. Threads our fingers together. “What are you thinking about?”
“You, mostly. Also tomorrow. Also the part where you leave and I’m here trying not to bake walnut cookies with my feelings.” I turn my head to look at him. In the dim light from the window, I can just make out the planes of his face. The scruff on his jaw.Those blue eyes that have been seeing me since the beginning. “I’m thinking about how I don’t want tonight to end.”
“It doesn’t have to end yet.”
