Page 85 of What We Break
"Yeah?"
"I don't usually do this."
My stomach drops. "Stay over? Because if you're regretting?—"
"No." She puts her hand on my chest, right over my heart, which is now beating way too fast. "Not regretting. Just... acknowledging." She takes a breath. "I don't usually stay over. I don't usually let myself fall for someone this fast. I don't usually want to be with someone this much."
"But?"
"But I did. I do. And it scares me a little."
Okay. Okay, that's not a bad thing. Don't freak the fuck out yet.
"Scares you how?" I ask, because I need to understand. I need to know if this is the kind of scared that makes people run or the kind that makes them stay.
"What if I mess it up? What if I don't know how to do this—the staying, the building something with someone else?" Her fingers trace patterns on my chest, absent and anxious.
"You don't have to be good at it right away." I cover her hand with mine, stilling her nervous fingers. "We can figure it out together. I'm not exactly an expert either."
She looks up at me, and there's something vulnerable in her eyes. "What if you get tired of me figuring it out?"
"Laine." I cup her face in my hand. "That's not going to happen."
"How do you know?"
"Because I—" I stop. Start again. My thumb traces her cheekbone,buying time. "Look, I'm not good at this. The serious conversation thing. I usually make a joke and change the subject, but I don't want to do that with you."
"Then don't."
"I've never felt like this before." The words come out rough. "Like, ever. And I've dated people. Nice people. But I never wanted to spend a Saturday morning grocery shopping with them. I never wanted to know their coffee order or meet their friends or—" I'm rambling again. Fuck. "What I'm trying to say is, I'm falling in love with you. And that's terrifying, and I'm probably saying this all wrong, but it's true."
Her breath catches. "Reid..."
"I know it's fast. I know we've only known each other a couple of months. But I can't pretend I don't feel it. I don't want to pretend."
She's quiet for a long moment, just looking at me. I can feel my heart pounding against my ribs, can feel her hand still pressed against my chest. She has to feel it too. Has to know how nervous I am, how much this matters.
Then she leans up and kisses me, soft and sweet and full of something that feels like relief.
"I'm falling in love with you too," she whispers against my lips. "And that is so freaking scary. Like standing on the edge of something and wanting to jump, even though you can't see the bottom."
Would it be inappropriate to scream and jump up and down on the bed? I don't want to pull a Tom Cruise, but damn, I know what he was feeling in that moment. It's this amazing mix of best feeling ever and 'oh God, don't let me fuck this up'.
"That's—" I pull her closer, needing her against me. "I'll catch you. Or fuck—I'll jump with you. I know that sounds like a line, but I mean it. Whatever this is, wherever it goes, I'm not going anywhere."
"You can't promise that."
I really can. Because I know enough to know that what I feel for her is so much more than anything I've ever felt. Even with Tracy. For the first time, I'm grateful she walked out the fucking door. I could have lived my whole life not knowing I was settling for something less than amazing. "Watch me."
We kiss again — deeper this time, slower — and when we breakapart she tucks herself against me, head on my shoulder like she's done it a thousand times.
Her whole body goes soft. Warm weight pressing into mine, no tension anywhere, just — trust. The kind you can feel in the way someone breathes.
And this knot I've been carrying around for I-don't-even-know-how-long just quietly unties itself.
She's here. She's staying. She feels the same way.
Holy shit.
