I tighten my grip slightly. “I know. But seeing how you’ve managed to rebuild something with your parents makes me want to try.”
She huffs a small laugh. “You’re doing better than you think.”
“What about you?” I ask. “How are you really doing?”
She goes quiet for a second, looking down at our hands.
“I feel free for the first time in forever. I know I kind of checked out emotionally with James long before all of this. But still… to know that someone would willingly put me in danger to save themselves. That hurt…”
She pauses and I run my fingers over her knuckles, stroking circles.
“Everything that happened brought me here though. To you. And if James hadn’t done what he did, then I don’t know if we’d be sitting here now.”
I nod. “That makes sense. I hate what he did, but if he hadn’t been such an asshole then I’d probably still be stuck in my office watching screens and being secretly in love with you.”
After a few moments she speaks, her voice soft. “Everything’s so much easier with you.”
I look at her. “How?”
She shrugs one shoulder. “You don’t make me question myself. You don’t make me feel like I have to prove anything. I just… am. You make me the best version of myself.”
I nod. I get it. That’s exactly how Esme makes me feel. Like I’m capable of anything with her at my side.
She studies me for a second, her expression shifting. “You’ve been thinking.”
“That obvious?”
“With you? Always. I can see the wheels turning,” she says with a smile.
I glance out at the clearing again, buying myself a second I don’t actually need. “I guess I have been,” I admit.
“What about?”
I turn back to her, because there’s no point dragging it out. “About us.”
Her expression softens, but there’s no hesitation there. No fear. She knows I’m not having second thoughts about us.
“Okay.”
“I know this has been fast,” I say. “At least from the outside.”
“It doesn’t feel fast.”
“No,” I agree. “It doesn’t.”
I take a breath, letting it out slowly.
“We’ve had fifteen years of this,” I continue. “Of knowing each other. Of being in each other’s lives. It just… wasn’t like this.”
Her fingers tighten slightly in mine. “I know.”
“I don’t want to pretend this is something it’s not,” I say. “I don’t want to treat it like something temporary or see how it goes.”
“It’s not temporary,” she says quietly.
“Yeah.” I nod. “I know. But I… ”
I shift a little so I’m facing her more fully.
