Not because I want to rush it.
Because relief is apparently not a gentle emotion.
Philip kisses me back with the same desperate lack of grace, mouth warm and slightly trembling, breath catching when I slide my hand into his hair.
The frame rattles softly against the wall behind him when his hip bumps the sideboard.
Neither of us pays it any attention.
Four months of distance.
Four months of restraint.
Four months of saying everything except the thing itself.
It all crashes into this.
His fingers clutch tighter in my shirt.
I pull him closer.
He tastes like tea he hasn’t had yet and airport air and something achingly familiar that my body remembers long before my brain catches up.
Philip breaks the kiss first, but only by an inch.
Forehead against mine.
Breathing hard.
“This was a stupidly long flight for a nervous breakdown,” he murmurs.
I let out a breath that could almost be a laugh.
“You do look mildly stressed.”
“I am mildly stressed.”
I brush my thumb once along his jaw.
“You should’ve told me.”
His eyes flicker open.
“Told you what?”
“That you were coming.”
Philip gives me a tired, disbelieving look.
“If I had told you, I’d have had to commit to it while still in Toronto. This way I could panic internationally in stages.”
I smile.
He frowns. “What?”
“You really do have a lot in common with Heath.”
Philip gives me a look.
