Her face softens so fast it nearly breaks me.
“I don’t want to leave.”
I move then. Slowly at first, then not slowly enough. She meets me halfway, rising onto her toes as my hands frame her face and her arms slide around my neck. The kiss is not frantic. Not like the storm. Not like the workbench or the rain or the desperate edge of wanting so much it almost stole the choice out from under us.
This kiss is quieter. Deeper. The kind that says we both know the door is open and neither of us is reaching for it.
When I lift my head, her eyes are wet.
“I’m going to make a mess of this,” she says.
“Probably.”
She laughs against my mouth. “You’re supposed to say no.”
“I’m going to make a mess of it too.”
“That’s also not comforting.”
“No.” I brush my thumb along her cheek. “But I’ll tell you the truth when I do.”
She closes her eyes for a second, then opens them again. “That might be enough.”
“It’s a start.”
Her hand slides down my chest and catches in the front of my shirt. “Show me the cabin?”
I nod.
So I show her.
The old table with the burn mark. The kitchen cabinets I keep promising to replace. The shelf of maps. The blue mug mymother loved. The back room I built myself. The trail behind the cabin, visible through the rear window, leading up into the dark.
Layla listens like every rough piece of my life matters. When we reach the bedroom doorway, she pauses. The room is warm from the fire now, the quilt straightened, the sock gone. Her gaze moves to the bed, then to me.
I wait. She knows I’m waiting.
She steps closer, her fingers brushing mine. “Hudson?”
“Yeah?”
“I came here because I wanted more than the storm. I came because I want you in the quiet too.”
There are moments in a man’s life when he knows something before he is ready to say it. This is one of them.
I love her.
Too soon. Too fast. Too wild to make sense.
I do not say it. Not tonight. Not when she has already been brave enough for one day. Instead, I take her hand and bring it to my mouth.
“Then stay,” I say.
Her smile is soft. Certain enough.
“For tonight?”
“For tonight.” I kiss her knuckles. “And tomorrow, we’ll see what brave thing comes next.”
