Page 192 of Just One More Thing

A shaky laugh spills out. “I LOVE YOU, JAKE WHEELER.”

He slides his hands up and cups my face. His thumbs brush under my eyes, catching tears I didn’t realize were still falling. Then he leans in and rests his forehead against mine.

“I love you, Emory Donovan,” he says quietly. “I have loved you every single day. The days you were here. The days you were gone. The days I told myself to stop. Every day. Every damn one.”

My legs are shaking so much I have to grab fistfuls of his jersey to stay upright.

“I know,” I whisper. “I know, and I’m so sorry I?—“

“Don’t.”

“Jake—“

“You’re here.” He tips my face up until I have to look at him. “That’s what matters. You’re here.”

He doesn’t punish me or make me crawl over broken glass for what I should’ve said years ago.

Just Jake. Still meeting me with both hands open.

Then he kisses me.

The stadium erupts again, but it may as well be happening in another universe.

All I know is his lips are on mine. His hands on my face. And he kisses me with the kind of relief that feels like all the years of loving me finally found what they’ve been searching for.

When he pulls back, he doesn’t go far. Just enough that I can see his eyes. They’re still wet.

He’s smiling now in that wide, open, nothing held back way that always ruins me.

The dimple.

That devastating dimple.

It hits me so hard I almost laugh.

“Mo,” he says.

“Jake.”

His smile deepens. “Just one more thing.”

My breath catches. I brace for whatever’s coming.

“Thank you.”

That word has lived inside me for ten years like a splinter. A sharp little souvenir of the worst thing I could’ve said in the best possible moment.

And he just handed it back to me with a dimple.

I stare at him. Then I bust out laughing. Fresh tears spilling for a completely different reason.

“You are such an ass,” I say.

He laughs too, his forehead dropping to mine again.

I shove both hands against his chest plate. “You’ve been waiting to use that.”

“Ten years.”