Page 155 of IRL: In Real Life
He took both my hands in one of his and led me out of the bedroom, back down the hall, back into the living room where there was nowhere for either one of us to hide behind little tasks.
He sat first and pulled me down beside him on the couch. Not in his lap. Not trapped. Just close enough that I could feel my own pulse acting up.
For a second, neither of us said anything.
Then he looked at me, and I knew he had come here to tell the truth for real.
“I know what I did,” he said.
My throat pulled tight immediately.
Because that was the thing about finally getting the truth. Once it showed up, a woman had to be ready to hold it.
He kept going.
“I knew it by the time I left you the other night. Knew it the next day. Knew it sitting on Devon’s couch, trying to act like I hadn’t left you standing out there by yourself in that moment.”He scrubbed a hand over his jaw. “I kept telling myself I was protecting what we had.”
I said nothing.
He looked down at our hands once, then back at me.
“And some of that was true,” he said. “I didn’t want Bryce or the timeline or none of them getting their hands on something that mattered to me before I knew how to hold it right.”
I heard the truth in that, and it didn’t fix everything. And yet it still reached me.
Then his face changed.
“But mostly,” he said, “I was being an idiot and protecting my own heart, not yours.”
My eyes burned with tears before I could stop them.
And that made me mad too, because I knew exactly what that felt like. I knew what it was to want something real and still keep one hand near the exit. I knew what it was to love a man and still move careful because life had already taught me too many lessons I never asked for.
I could sit here and be mad that he hadn’t jumped when I did, but truthfully, I had made him wait too. Made him stand there while I acted like my heart wasn’t already leaning his way.
Micah saw whatever crossed my face and shifted closer.
“I’ve been moving like a man who still thinks real things go fake if he stares at them too long,” he said. “Like if I keep it light enough, private enough, under enough control, I won’t have to face how deep you got in me.” His voice dropped lower. “That stopped making sense a while ago.”
He reached up and wiped under my eye with his thumb, careful because he knew exactly how much pride I had and how close I was to losing my grip anyway.
“I love you,” he said.
He kept his hand at my face.
“I love you,” he said again, slower this time. “And I was trying to protect my heart from a woman who already had it. That was stupid. That was me. Not you.” He swallowed once. “My heart is yours, Talia.”
The tears came harder after that, and there wasn’t a damn thing to do about them.
I shook my head once.
“What?” he asked softly.
“You waited until I spent all that damn money at Ross Park to say this?”
That got an actual laugh out of him. Low. Shaky enough to make my own chest hurt.
“I should’ve said it sooner.”
