My pulse is loud.
Too loud.
Every nerve feels lit from the inside.
His hand comes up first, neither hesitant nor rushed. It settles at the back of my neck with a certainty that grounds something wild inside me. Like he’s making sure I understand the moment before it happens.
Then his mouth meets mine.
Soft at first, but not unsure. The contact is firm enough to feel intentional, the kind of kiss that sayshe has thought about this more than he’ll ever admit. Heat follows almost immediately, spreading low and fast through my chest, through my stomach, through the places I’ve been keeping tightly controlled for so long.
I make a small sound I don’t recognize as my own.
That’s when his restraint shifts.
His fingers tighten slightly in my hair, guiding rather than asking, angling my head just enough to deepen the kiss. The world narrows to the rough warmth of his mouth, the steady pressure of his body close to mine, the slow, deliberate way hetakes his time like he knows exactly how dangerous it would be to rush this.
The first brush of his tongue against mine hits just enough to send a sharp rush of adrenaline through my veins, followed by a dizzying wave of endorphins that makes my knees feel suddenly less reliable, even though I am already sitting.
He feels it.
His free hand slides to my waist and holds me there easy and natural, like touching me has always made sense to him, even when neither of us was allowed to act on it.
The kiss deepens slowly, controlled but heavy with restraint, finally snapping loose after two years of pretending this thing between us wasn’t there.
Nothing about him is careless.
Nothing about this is accidental.
It feels chosen.
When we finally break, it’s not from lack of wanting. It’s from the shared understanding that if we don’t stop now, stopping later might become impossible.
His forehead drops to mine, his breath rougher than I’ve ever heard it. One of his thumbs traces a slow, grounding line along my jaw as if he’s confirming I’m real.
And the realization that I have just undone Will, even a little, settles deep in my chest with a sweetness that almost aches.
“Threemore days,” he says, his voice rough.
“I know,” I whimper.
He lifts his head, and his thumb traces a slow arc along my temple, barely touching, the kind of gesture that holds more weight than anything either of us could say right now. Then he presses his lips to my forehead, and I close my eyes and let myself have the moment instead of ruining it by thinking too far ahead.
We stay on the porch for another hour.
Shoulder to shoulder, his arm eventually finding its way around me, my head returning to rest against him. We talk about nothing important, little things like Deek’s latest terrible idea involving a pool table and what sounded like a legally questionable bet, whether Victoria’s craving for my salted caramel cookies had increased or decreased this week, and whether Bear would actually cry at the patch ceremony the way Koa was predicting.
We don’t kiss again.
But the shape of everything has changed, and we both know it, and neither of us seems to need to speak that aloud to make it real. It sits between us, this new and undeniable thing, warm and steady as the shoulder I’m resting against.
Threemore days.
My father’s affairs are in order.
Will’s patch ceremony is imminent.
And whatever comes after, whatever complicated, beautiful, devastating thing this life is arranging for both of us. But tonight there is only the porch, and the man beside me who finally let it be what it is.
