“You don’t have to say it back if you’re not ready,” he whispered, his lips skimming my cheek, my jaw, my neck. “I just need you to know.”
“No…Cole. I?—”
I didn’t know what I thought would happen when I opened my mouth, but I was not prepared for the torrent of emotion that came from simply trying to tell this man I was in love with him.
Hadbeenin love with him.
Was so scared of opening my heart and life to someone, but I couldn’t help but fall hard for him.
Cole rolled us so he could hold me, rubbing my arms and whispering to me while I got myself together. It took a minute, pressed under his warmth and muscle like the best weighted blanket.
Then I propped myself up on one elbow, looking down at him in the dim light. His expression was open, vulnerable.
“It scares the shit out of me to say this,” I said, the words tumbling out before fear could clamp down on them. “But I can’t even picture my life anymore without you in it. I want this. All of it. Whatever’s next, however messy or weird or sideways it gets. I want you. I want to love you. And I want you to love me back.”
Cole pulled me down to him, kissing my lips. “Good. Because I’m already there.”
Epilogue
COLE
Nine months later
I woke up to Harper’s feet pressed against my calves.
“Babe!” I grumbled, still half-asleep. “Your feet are ice.”
“Then warm them up,” she said, rolling over, then scooting closer until she was pressed up against my side with her head on my chest. She slung one leg over me, her thigh slotting right between mine in a way that was not conducive to staying asleep.
I cracked one eye open. Sunlight filtered through the blinds, and a quick glance at the clock on the nightstand confirmed it was past seven. But it was my day off. No surgeries. No rounds. No residents.
Just me, this woman I fell in love with, and no reason to leave the bed any time soon.
A shrill beep cut through the peace of the morning. Harper made a whimpering sound, reaching over me to the nightstand. She grabbed her phone to silence it, then returned her head to its preferred place of rest—my chest.
“We have no plans this morning. Why did you set an alarm for nothing?” I asked her, dropping a kiss on her forehead while my palm wandered the slope of her hip beneath the blanket.
“Not nothing. I want to get some unpacking done.” She tucked her face deeper into the hollow between my neck and shoulder, planting sweet kisses on my skin. “And eventually, we have to make it over to my parents’ for dinner.”
I raked my hand over her silk sleep scarf, massaging her scalp through the fabric with an absent-minded tenderness. “Mmmmm,” I said, “but how about just having sex all morning?”
“Tempting, but Ms. Patricia is already grumpy about the boxes that have been sitting around.”
It had only been a few weeks since Harper moved out of her condo in preparation to put it up for sale, but it had been a busy time at RMC and neither of us had the hours or the energy to deal with her belongings. She’d started moving in gradually—a toothbrush propped next to mine, a few pairs of soft socks rolled into my dresser.
Clothes she wore to my place were washed and put away in my closet instead of returned to hers. When the scarf she wore to bed was draped over the bathroom doorknob, I knew there was no turning back.
The guest room had become a forest of half-unpacked boxes stacked chest-high. I personally loved the chaos if it meant I had Harper with me day in and day out.
Ms. Patricia, on the other hand, was serious about getting Harper settled and feeling at home.
“So, you getting up, then?”
“Five more minutes,” she mumbled.
“You said that yesterday.”
“I know you aren’t complaining, Cole.”
