Page 33 of Late To Love
Stephanie turned and kissed her. The movement pressed her more firmly against Casey, skin warm from the sun. Casey tightened her hold, one arm banded across Stephanie’s ribs, the other curving around her waist like she could hold the moment in place. Her pulse thudded heavy in her throat and for a second she forgot how to breathe around it.
The words came quiet against her mouth, warm breath brushing her lips. “I love you.”
Casey didn’t think she’d ever get tired of hearing those words. Her own voice came out rough at the edges.
“I love you too, Steph.”
She meant it completely.
They would paddle back soon. The kayaks waited a few feet away.
Casey kept her arms around Stephanie’s waist and let the quiet settle. The sky kept shifting overhead, gold bleeding into rose and then soft purple at the edges of the mangroves, but she hardly noticed.
She pressed her lips to the warm curve where Stephanie’s shoulder met her neck. The skin there carried salt and sunscreen and that faint sweetness that always lived in her hair. Casey smiled against it.
This was going to last. She could see it so clearly it didn’t feel like wishing anymore. Mornings on their porch with coffee. Afternoons on the reef where Stephanie moved through the water with quiet confidence. Nights in the cottage with the ceiling fan turning lazy circles above them and rain tapping on the tin roof. The project management role Stephanie had taken with the coral restoration nonprofit, the one where her old skills finally got to protect something that mattered instead of just moving numbers around. All of it stretching out year after year, small everyday choices that added up to the rest of their lives.
