"I have loved you since the moment I saw you and you told me you weren't everyone."
My tears are impossible to hold back, blurring his face in front of me.
He takes one step closer. "I have loved you every single day since then."
His eyes hold no doubt. Just certainty, the kind thatcomes from finally saying something you've been holding back for far too long.
"I spent a year avoiding you." His voice catches slightly. "And almost another falling more and more in love with you. And I said nothing because I thought it was all impossible and I needed to let you go in order to love you properly."
He pauses, and something shifts in his expression.
"But I can't do that."
He once told me he was in agony because of me. I remember that day, the hunger in his face for something he couldn't have and couldn't stop wanting. All of that is visible right now, written across his face, finally allowed to exist in the open.
He loves me. I close my eyes to savor the moment, and hot tears spill down my cheeks.
"Don't cry, please." His voice goes thick, urgent. "I love you so much. And I am never leaving you. Ever."
I break. I cross the space between us and go into his waiting arms, and he catches me like he's been waiting his whole life for exactly this.
We cling to each other, my tears soaking into his shirt, his voice in my ear telling me over and over how much he loves me. The words come out a litany, a prayer, a promise he's making to both of us.
"You're coming with me?" I whisper it against his shoulder, still not quite believing.
"I'm coming wherever you go."
"But all your life is here."
"You are my life."
I have to kiss him. I go up on the tips of my toes and findhis mouth with mine, and he meets me halfway, his hands coming up to frame my face.
We kiss and kiss and kiss, and it feels like every kiss we've ever shared was a rehearsal. A practice run. This is the real one. This is the one that counts.
I pull back gasping, and his forehead drops to mine. We're both panting, his thumbs tracing my cheekbones, wiping away tears that keep coming no matter how many times he brushes them away.
"Say it again," I manage.
"I love you."
"Again."
"I love you, Lily Moreland." His voice breaks on it, raw and full. "Fuck, I just love you so much."
"I love you, too."
We kiss again, murmuring love and promises against each other's mouths, words that don't quite form all the way but don't need to.
"Wait." I pull back, my hands flat against him. "Wait."
He stills immediately, his eyes searching my face.
"What about your dad?" The worry that's been there since the first time I imagined this scenario rises to the surface. "Callahan. Your dad. You can't leave him. He needs you. He can't be alone in that house."
He grins. It's tired and happy, the kind of grin I've seen maybe three times since I've known him. It changes his whole face, makes him look younger and lighter and impossibly beautiful, and my stomach flips.
"He said he'd come with us."
