“Please.” He flashes that cocky grin I love so much. “I’mthe danger.”
I make it two steps before my voice catches. “Noa…”
He closes the distance first, cutting me off. “Hey.” His shoulders lift with a breath he tries to play off. “You’re not losing me. You’re just… putting me in storage for a bit.”
“And what if that bit becomes more than a while? Or close to forever?” I ask, biting my bottom lip. Saying the words I fear out loud.
His grin fades. He keeps his hands in his pockets like he’s afraid they’ll betray him if they move. His voice drops—low, steady, honest. “Then forever’s going to be real pissed when I come back to ruin its timeline.”
I let out a shaky laugh that breaks into something dangerously close to a sob.
He finally pulls his hands free and cups my face. His thumbs brush beneath my eyes before the tears can fall. He tucks a strand of hair behind my ear, looking at me like he’s memorizing every part of me. “I don’t want to hold you back, Cel,” he says slowly, like the words weigh more than the world itself. “These next few years—I’ll be gone more than I’m here. Probably off-grid. You deserve something… steadier.”
His shoulders are drawn, jaw tense. Like it’s taking all his willpower to force himself to speak.
“I want you building your life so big I have to fight to fit back into it,” he says, voice roughening, “not counting your days by my absence.”
Then he drops his hands and steps back—the decision carved into the set of his mouth.
“I can’t be selfish,” he whispers. “Not about this. Not about you.”
His eyes go glassy. Mine do too.
“You are my beginning,” he says, and his voice cracks on the truth of it. “And—you’ll be my end.” A swallow. A breath he has to earn. “Because when all this is done, when I can be here in the way you deserve…” His gaze locks on mine, terrified and certain at once. “If you still choose me, I will spend the rest of my life earning that choice.”
The way he’s looking at me cracks something open inside.
I step into him again, because I can’t not. I pull him to me, pressing my forehead to his. We breathe together for a moment, the world narrowing to just this—warmth, heartbeat, the fragile space between yes and goodbye.
Then he kisses me. Soft and slow.
When he pulls back, my voice is shaking. “Don’t you dare die out there,” I say, smacking his chest lightly.
One eyebrow lifts, the ghost of a smirk on his beautiful face. “Try not to start any wars without me, Farris.”
A laugh trembles out of me and dies quickly. The air stills, suddenly too quiet.
“You can ask me to wait,” I whisper.
“You can ask me to stay,” he replies, just as softly.
The words hang between us—easy to say, impossible to live with.
He closes his eyes for a beat. When he opens them, there’s wreckage and resolve.
“I won’t ask that of you,” he whispers, his voice breaking slightly. “Not like that.”
Because if either of us said yes, we’d have to watch the slow way it would drown us both.
He kisses me again. It’s heat and ache and goodbye, dressedup as “See you later.” When he finally pulls back, his eyes are wet. So are mine.
“You’re going to be brilliant,” he says, voice steadier than it has any right to be. “Burning through Whittaker next year with that terrifying brain and that impossible heart.”
I swallow hard.
“I know you and Gavrail will find more answers in Europe.” His mouth twitches—regret, maybe, or pain. Possibly both. “He told me about the note from his mom. I think it’s the right call. To go there. To find out what she knows.” He pauses then, a slight smile on his lips as he tugs at my hair, teasing. “Although Europe might not survive the two of you.”
“I’ll try not to break too many ancient monuments.”
