Page 154 of 10 Rings I Hate About You
His pace didn’t break; it was more refined, shortened steps, controlled breathing, attention locking in on me with that precise, deliberate focus he applied when something mattered.
LikeImattered.
Everything else fell away.
He’d already set his priority.
And I was it.
Then he slowed. Not visibly. Not in any way the room would clock. Just the specific energy that happened when we were in the same space, and both of us knew it.
He stopped in front of me. Pressed his forehead to mine. It lasted three seconds. Maybe four. His hand settled at my lower back, and we stood there in the middle of the common room with everything at stake around us. I felt the week land all at once—the dinners, the apartment, the nights at the farmhouse, his hands going still when things were too much, and mine finding them when they did—and something that had beenbuilding for longer than I’d admitted to myself finally gave itself a name.
I love him.
Not an earth-shattering revelation. Not a lightning strike. More like turning around and finding that it had always been there, that the shape of it had been visible since almost the beginning if I’d been willing to look directly at it, and now that I was looking, there it was.
Inevitable. Already true.
I breathed in the joy that filled me. I tempered the part that wanted to shout it. I pulled back the instinct to grab his face between my hands and kiss him while saying the words.
But now was not the time.
“How are you?” I asked.
“Fine.”
The word landed flat. I’d learned his tells the same way he’d learned mine—gradually, by paying attention, by filing away the small signals his careful composure gave off when something was running underneath it.
I turned to face him fully. My hands cupped his shoulders, and I felt the tension there, controlled and tight, the physical evidence of a week of contained anxiety.
“Kingsley.”
He looked at me. The worry in his eyes was real and unguarded in a way he didn’t let most people see. I understood what it cost him to be vulnerable, and I took that seriously—to the point that I’d tucked it away and treasured this moment, knowing I was among the few.
“Tonight, no matter what happens, we’re in it together,” I said. “Whatever the committee decides doesn’t change what you’ve done for this shelter. It doesn’t change the benefit this program has. And it doesn’t change what Theo knows about how you’ve shown up for him.”
His stare was unblinking. For a second, I almost swiped my hand in front of his face to get some kind of reaction, but then a slight smile tipped up the corner of his lips. He was on the same page as me, even if we hadn’t said it.
He pressed a brief kiss to my lips. “You’re the only thing holding me together right now.”
“Then I’ll keep doing that,” I said. “Go get Theo, and get up front to greet the committee members.”
He nodded, and with one last glance at me, he left the room. On his way out, he passed Cheryl and lifted his hand to return her high-five, which she did without breaking stride. Three weeks ago, she’d threatened to bury him in a location nobody would find.Now look at them.
Cheryl reached me a moment later, laminated sheet of poses already in hand. Her eyes flicked over the room once like she was confirming everything was exactly where she expected it to be. Checking, adjusting, already three steps ahead of anything that might go wrong.
“Ready?” she asked.
“No,” I said.
She winked at me. “Perfect. Me neither. Let’s do this.”
We ran through the poses and modifications—she’d lead the flow from the front, I’d circulate and handle the committee interaction directly. I wanted Marc focused on the animals and Theo, not managing a conversation with two people holding clipboards. That was my job tonight.
“The new dog,” Cheryl said, consulting her sheet.
“Noble.”
