Because he never asked me to be anything but what I was, even when I was jagged and raw.
June nights stretched long, cicadas buzzing outside, sweat-dampsheets sticking to our skin. He’d pull the fan closer, grumble about how I stole the blanket even when it was too hot for one, then let me press my freezing feet against his calves.
And one night, after too much wine and too much silence, I let my hands find his face, trace the faint scar below his jaw, and kiss him like I couldn’t remember why I’d been holding back.
That was the night the words almost slipped again, sharp and terrifying at the back of my tongue:I love you.
I swallowed them whole.
But I think he heard them anyway, because he kissed me harder, like he was answering.
And that was the night I knew...
I wasn’t just falling.
I’d already fallen.
CHAPTER 24
HARLAN - ON PURPOSE
July came in hot and stubborn. Heat shimmered over the blacktop, cicadas droned so loud it felt like the air itself buzzed, and every sunset dragged its feet like it didn’t want to leave. Somewhere in there, without me circling a date on a calendar, Ava started living at my place a couple of nights a week. But she would never admit it.
Not officially. A sweatshirt went “missing” and reappeared on my chair. Her favourite tea migrated to my cabinet. A hair tie lived on my gear shift. The toothbrush happened later, tossed into my medicine cabinet with a muttered, “Don’t make it weird, Chief,” that I pretended not to hear because my heart was beating too hard to trust my voice.
I’d told myself patience was the plan. That if I wanted something real with her, I couldn’t force it into a shape it wasn’t ready to hold. So, I learned to sit with wanting.
Wanting looks like this:
Her ankles tangled in my calves on the couch while we ate takeout and watched a documentary we liked to watch over and over again. Her laugh hitting me square in the chest when I mess up the pan flip on a pancake at midnight. Her ocean eyes, blue when she’s teasing, green when she’s bracing, storm-dark when she’s letting me see past the iron, tracking to my mouth and away again like she doesn’t trust her own hands.
And me? I keep my palms open. I let the moments come to me.
We fell into a summer rhythm. Long days, longer light. The clinic. The precinct. The truck with the dented side panel that made the best tacos in the county. I’d text her three words:
Truck. Eight. You?
And she’d show nine minutes late on purpose and make me pretend to be annoyed.
On the Fourth, we didn’t brave the crowds. I parked the truck out past the old feed store, tailgate down, cooler between us. The fireworks were far enough to be soft, just colour blooming over the tree line, a hum where the boom should’ve been. She leaned against me with her bare feet propped on the bumper, toenails painted the exact colour of defiance.
“Do you ever wish you were somewhere else?” she asked, eyes on the sky.
“I used to,” I said. “Not tonight.”
She didn’t answer. But her fingers found that spot inside my elbow and rested there, light and sure, and I thought: remember this. Remember the exact weight of her hand when she’s not guarding the world.
Later, when the last sparks dimmed and the cicadas took the night back, she turned to me like she was going to say something that would change our shape. Her mouth parted. But there was something that looked like fear in her eyes.
I could feel the I love you, almost rise in her throat.
“Don’t,” I said softly. Not because I didn’t want it. Because I did. Because I wanted it too much to let it get born on the back end of fireworks and borrowed quiet.
Her eyes, green now, all question, searched mine.
“Let it be what it is,” I said. “Let it grow on purpose.”
She nodded once. Relief, maybe. Or confusion. Both look the same at first.
