“I love you, too.”
He kisses me—slow, deliberate, nothing like the urgent collisions that characterized our earlier encounters. This is the kiss of a man who knows he has time. Who isn’t racing toward something or running from anything. Just present, in this moment, with me.
I sink into it. Let myself feel the warmth of him, the strength of his arms, the way his mouth moves against mine like we’ve been doing this forever instead of weeks. In some ways, we have. Every almost-kiss, every charged moment, every time we looked at each other and pretended we didn’t feel it—all of that was practice for this.
“Bedroom?” he says against my lips.
“Bedroom.”
We move through the apartment without urgency. No desperate stumbling, no clothes torn off in hallways. Just walking together, hands linked, like this is the most natural thing in the world.
Because it is. That’s the revelation that keeps hitting me tonight—how natural this feels. How right. I built so many stories about how hard this would be. How complicated. How much I’d have to manage and protect and brace myself for.
None of those stories were true. All those years of waiting, of wondering, of preparing for disappointment... and the actual having is easier than any of it.
The bedroom is soft with evening light. I didn’t plan this—didn’t arrange candles or set a scene. It’s just my space, lived-in and real, and Bennett moves through it like he belongs here.
Because he does. He’s always belonged here, even when we were both too scared to admit it.
“Stop thinking,” he says.
“I’m not thinking.”
“You are. I can see it.” He cups my face in both hands. “Whatever’s running through your head right now—let it go. Just be here. With me.”
The instruction echoes all those weeks of emotional exercises. Name what you’re feeling. Stay present. Don’t retreat into control.
He’s turned my own lessons back on me.
“I’m thinking about how long I waited for this,” I admit. “How many years I told myself it would never happen.”
“And now?”
“Now it’s happening. And I keep waiting for something to go wrong.”
“Nothing’s going wrong.” His thumbs trace my cheekbones. “Not tonight. Not tomorrow. Not ever, if I can help it.”
“You can’t promise that.”
“I can promise to try.” He kisses my forehead. “I can promise that every time something goes wrong, I’ll show up and fix it instead of running. That’s all any of us can do.”
He’s right. I know he’s right. But the fear I’ve carried for so long doesn’t dissolve just because I want it to.
“Hey.” His voice is soft. “Look at me.”
I look.
“I’m here,” he says. “I’m not going anywhere. And whatever scared part of you is still waiting for me to disappear—I’m going to prove it wrong. Every day. For as long as it takes.”
The sincerity in his voice cracks my chest open. Not painfully—more a release of pressure that’s been building for years.
“Okay,” I whisper.
“Okay?”
“Okay, I believe you.”
He smiles—not the controlled expression he used to wear. This is genuine and transforms his whole face.
