Page 18 of Battered & Broken
"I can." He said it simply, like he didn’t even have to think too hard to pull up the memories. "I remember exactly what I did before this. I was alone. I had to pump. I rarely smiled." His hand moved slowly. "This is better."
I chuckled at his word choice. "I hope that's an understatement."
"A giant understatement." He pressed his lips to my forehead and held there for a few seconds. "This is the best life I could imagine. Because of you. Because you let me love you."
He said the sweetest things. "Because I love loving you."
Other people probably thought we were ridiculous with how lovey-dovey we were, but I hoped that never changed. We were generous with saying how much we loved each other because we’d both spent so much time not loving anyone. Not knowing what it was like to have someone waiting at home. Someone to spend every day with and share significant moments with.
Love was now an integral part of our vocabulary, because it was an integral part of our life together.
I'd been stingy about anything positive for most of my life. I just didn’t believe I deserved it. Then Ozzie showed up and kept giving until I forgot I wasn’t worthy of him. He made me believe everything good in my life wasn’t ever going away. That was a better way to live.
It took me a bit, but I was starting to understand what he meant when he said that only good attention was good attention.
He showed me good attention every minute of every day. Even when he was tired or frustrated with something, he never took it out on me. He cherished me, and that made it easy for me to learn how to cherish him the way he deserved.
The man I was before I met Ozzie seemed like a stranger now. Even though it had only been a few weeks since that night he saved me, we’d experienced so much growth in that time.
And it was just the beginning for us because I planned to spend the rest of my life with that man.
10
OZZIE
For some reason, today was the day my key on his keyring made a lump form in my throat.
Cedric was on his way out the door when he grabbed it off the hook by the door, and it just hit me that enough time had passed. For a few months now, we’d been rotating between each other's apartments, but maybe it was time to make things a bit more official. More permanent.
"Hey." I nodded toward the keys. "That’s a lot of keys you have to lug around every day."
He glanced down at his keyring and shrugged. "I guess..." He was clearly confused about where I was going with this. I was too.
I leaned against the counter and took a sip of my coffee. "I'm just saying, maybe you don’t need quite so many."
He raised an eyebrow and dropped the keys in his jacket pocket. "Um, okay, weirdo… I'll be home by five thirty." He kissed me on his way to the door and then took off.
I was being weird. Why? Why was I dancing around the subject that was staring me right in the face? We were paying two rents for two identical apartments on the same floor, and we only used one at a time. It was silly.
For the rest of the day, it weighed on me. Not in a bad way but more…excited. Committed. Determined to move to the next stage of our relationship.
When Cedric came home, I was making dinner. He dropped his bag in the entryway and came straight to the kitchen and stole a chunk of the carrot I was chopping before kissing me on the lips. “Hi, honey. I’m home.”
“I missed you.” I kept my eyes on the cutting board and took a deep breath. I wasn’t nervous because I thought he’d say no, but I didn’t want to spook him. He’d made such progress in believing that I was all in on us. I hoped this would be another flag on that hill. "Can I ask you something?"
"You're already asking me something." He leaned on the counter and popped the carrot into his mouth.
"Do you wanna move in here…permanently?"
Cedric went quiet, which was rare. “Permanently?”
I put down the knife and turned to give him my full attention. He wasn't smiling yet, which meant he was actually thinking about it instead of deflecting with a joke.
"I just mean that we don't need two apartments.” I reached for his hand and held it between both of mine. "It doesn't make sense to keep paying double rent when we can just live in one."
He nodded and swallowed hard. "That's very logical."
My stomach was tight, but I forced a smile, hoping to lighten the mood. "I'm a logical person."
