“Zane.”
“I love you.” My voice steadies because the truth is ugly, but it is mine, and I am done dressing it up as anything else. “I loved you before I knew how to do anything useful with it. I loved you when I was young and angry and stupid enough to think bleeding for you was the same as being good for you. I loved you behind bars.”
I pause for a second and let that one sit. “Every night in that cell, you were the last thing on my mind before I fell asleep. Your face. Your voice. And every morning when I came back up, you were the first thing waiting. Not once did that change. Not one night. Not one morning in all that time. Not once in seven years.”
Her eyes shine.
I take another breath and keep going because I have been carrying this weight for so long, and now is the time to put it down where it belongs.
“I love you now, standing in this kitchen, with you pissed at me and probably wondering whether that tin of tomatoes has enough weight to knock some sense into my head.”
Her mouth trembles. “It might.”
“Probably worth a shot.”
Her mouth loses the battle with itself and curves at one corner, just slightly, but enough. “You never stopped loving me.”
I shake my head. “No, Skylar. You have never stopped owning me. Not one day. Not one hour. Not one fucking second since the first time I saw you.”
Chapter 18
Skylar
The words land, and for once, they don’t cut.
They settle.
Deep.
Warm.
Terrifying in the specific way only good things are when you have waited long enough for them to become something else.
You have never stopped owning me. Not one day. Not one hour. Not one fucking second since the first time I saw you.
I stand in the kitchen, staring at him, waiting for the pain to come. Because it always fucking comes. That sharp little twist beneath my ribs. The old wound clearing its throat. The part of me that has always known exactly where to find anger when softness gets too close, too real, and too much like something I might actually be allowed to keep.
But that doesn’t come.
Not this time.
There is only Zane. Standing in front of me, his chest rising hard, his eyes on mine, every defense stripped from his face. The swagger gone. So is the smirk. It is simply him, the truth he just handed me, and the way he is looking at me like he has never once in his life meant anything more.
My fingers curl around the edge of the counter before my knees can make a decision I will regret.
Nothing about us has ever been polished.
We have always been messy, sharp, and a little bruised from the fall. Two people who grew up in houses that taught them the world was not safe, finding each other regardless and deciding, against every available piece of evidence, that it might be worth trying.
And somehow, against every odd, every mistake, and every door that closed between us, we are still here.
I stare at him, and all the words I have kept ready for years lose their shape.
There is nothing left to throw. No accusation clenching behind my teeth. No fight left in my hands or in the need to make him hurt so he understands mine.
He understands. I can see that now.
I can see it in the way he is standing there, not pushing or filling the silence with something easier. It is simply him, what he said, and the space he is giving me to do whatever I need to it.
