“Because I like it when you worry about me.”
“I love you,” I say, softer than I mean to.
“I know.” His voice dips as he lifts my hand to his lips again and presses a slow kiss to my palm. “I know,” he repeats.
Our food comes, and we drift into easier conversation—feed schedules, the dog Old Roy picked up, the cat someone left in a cardboard box by the clinic door. Anything except the thing swirling between us like a live wire.
But in the truck afterward, the music low, the air thick with everything we’re not saying, I finally press my palm to the dash. “Can you park?”
He doesn’t hesitate. He pulls to the shoulder of the long stretch of road leading back toward Wildflower Hollow. The headlights hit the roadside grass, and the truck idles with a soft hum.
“Can we talk about it?” I ask.
He’s looking straight at me, but I can’t read what’s happening behind those eyes. So I find his hand, slide my fingers through his, and force the words out.
“I love you. I really do. I just need a minute to think about everything. Not because I don’t want you. Not because I don’t want us. But because this is big, and I want to make sure I don’t hurt you later.”
He nods, jaw shifting a little as he absorbs it. “Okay.”
The relief in that one word makes something inside me loosen. I lean in to kiss him, intending it to be soft, gentle, grateful.
Instead, the moment our lips meet, something in me breaks open, and I melt into him. His mouth moves against mine with a slow insistence, and the tension threading through my nerves gives way to a rush of heat.
He undoes my seat belt, sliding an arm around my waist, guiding me closer. When I climb onto his lap, my knees bracketing his hips, his breath hitches against my mouth. I don’t care about anything except the feel of him beneath me, the warmth of his hands sliding along my back under my shirt, the way his tongue brushes mine with a tenderness that makes my whole body shudder.
“I love you,” I whisper again, saying it over and over because I need him to hear it, because I need him to understand that my hesitation has nothing to do with my heart.
His hands move along my sides, fingers tracing the line of skin between my jeans and my shirt. The contact sends a ripple through me, and I clutch his shoulders, kissing him deeper, losing myself in the taste of him.
All I want is him. All I’ve ever wanted is him.
But somewhere in the haze of heat and need, I can still feel the shape of the question he asked earlier, hovering between us like something fragile.
I touch his jaw, kiss him one more time, and breathe his name into his mouth like it’s the only thing holding me together.
Billy.
And even as I tremble in his arms, I know I’m going to have to find the courage to answer him before I ruin one of the best things in my life.
It takes another four hours before he drives me home, and I know it’s entirely my fault. I didn’t want the night to end. I didn’t want the tension between us to be the only thing swirling around my thoughts.
So I told him to take the turn toward the little lake past the cattle dip, the one that still smells faintly of summer grass even in the colder months.
He didn’t hesitate. He never does when it comes to me.
The moon hangs low over the water by the time we get there, and the wind stirs the reeds along the bank. Billy pulls a blanket from behind the seat and lays it down like this is something we’ve done every day of our lives.
Maybe, in some ways, we have. Maybe all we’ve ever been doing is returning to each other over and over.
We settle on the blanket, my head resting against his shoulder, his arm warm and firm around me. The stars spread across the sky in bright clusters, each one sharp enough to make me feel small and somehow infinite at the same time.
He points upward. “That one looks like a bull.”
“It looks like a teapot.”
“It absolutely doesn’t. A teapot? You’re crazy.”
“You’re the one seeing livestock everywhere.”
