She laughs and sniffs. “Then we’re terrible at this. This might be the first time it’s felt hard at all.”
I scoot forward.
She scoots forward.
“It hasn’t felt hard at all, has it?”
She shakes her head. “No. It’s been … happy.” She groans. “That sounds so lame. But I mean it. I don’t remember being this happy in my life.”
“Neither do I,” I say.
“Then why aren’t we happy right now?” she asks.
“Because things are about to change.”
“Every change so far has been good. Why shouldn’t this one be?”
I feel like I’m breaking in ways I don’t have words for. I’ve never had to explain this kind of fear. I don’t want to lie here like a lump of dread, but I also don’t know how to say what’s messing with my head. It’s not just the camp or Aldridge. It’s her. It’s me. It’s all of this.
I run my fingers through the soft wave at her temple, slow and careful, like she might spook if I rush it. “I guess it feels like it’s in the wrong direction. Distance instead of closeness. This … life we’re building is finally starting to take shape, and I’m afraid I’m abandoning it with a foundation and a frame but nothing else.”
“We don’t have to stop building just because we’re apart for three weeks.”
“I know. But that doesn’t stop me from being afraid.”
“I don’t want you to be afraid. I want you to believe. In us.”
Us.
The word slices through me, gentle but sharp. There’s an us, and Kayla wants it.
I want it.
So what’s stopping me from saying it?
Kayla’s eyes search mine in the dark. She touches my cheek with her finger, soft and warm, and everything in me goes quiet. Her touch calms something wild in my chest. And when her palm grazes the corner of my mouth, I kiss it without thinking.
Then her wrist.
Then I’m threading our fingers together, pulling her a little closer. My chest is too tight not to.
“You want to know what I’m feeling?” I ask, barely more than a whisper. My throat is dry, my mind buzzing. I stare at her in the dim glow from the streetlamp outside. She’s watching me intently, like she’s bracing for something that might break her.
I cannot be the one to break her.
I brush one of her curls back from her face. Her skin is so soft it makes my fingers feel clumsy. I do it again just to feel her. To calm myself.
“I’m feeling like an idiot,” I say. “I’m lying here next to my gorgeous wife—the only woman who’s ever made me feel like I’m worth the effort—and I’m moping about the future. What is wrong with me?”
“If you’re not moping about the future, what should you be doing?”
That question settles somewhere behind my ribs. I cup the back of her head, thumb tracing her hairline. “I don’t know. Cuddling, at the very least. Maybe nibbling on your ear, if you’ll let me.”
She laughs, quiet and warm, and the sound eases something sharp inside me.
“Cuddling sounds amazing,” she says.
“Then get in here,” I tell her.
