I was bluffing.
I had no hope that Morana would sayyesto staying with me tonight. I was making offers and being over the top, like usual. She just looked so pretty in the fairy lights that I got this picture in my skull of her looking prettyin my clothesin the fairy lights, and I lunged for it.
I should have known better.
I should have known how little she wanted to go home in the dark. I should have knownthatjust like I know how she likes pretty things and cute things. Because ofcourseshe does. She builds tiny towns to facilitate her chore charts, and she draws little doodles on the cards she makes, and she has a heap of adorable stuffed animals, and she made my room into this cotton candydream.
I should have known this place waseverythinglike us.
Just like I know that she already trusts me. More than she wants to admit to herself. Even when there are a hundred reasons she should be cautious.
She’s trusted me since before she said thattrusting mewould be what made her fall in love. She’salreadyin love with me. It’s just the part where she admits it that’s lacking.
She trusts me. She likes me. She wants me.
She’s just scared I’ll treat her in the ways that other people she’s liked and trusted have.
So I can’t.
I absolutely cannot prioritize what I want tonight.
I justcan’t.
The second Morana steps from my bathroom wearing nothing but one of my button-up night shirts down to her midthighs, a low hissing curse exits my mouth.
Flushed red as a sunset, she presses her lips together and tries to adjust a gap that keeps forming between the buttons at her chest. Her glass green eyes flick up to me, then lower. “I…I wasn’t honestly expecting your clothes to be so…big…yet also small. On me.”
This is how I die.
I just know it.
She crosses her arms, hugging herself. “This is…a horrible idea, isn’t it? There’s no way something doesn’t happen. I should just…”
Go home?
In the dark?
And cry alone?
Absolutely not, my love.
I clench my fist at my side. “If you aren’t comfortable sharing with me, I’ll sleep in the guest room where my old bed ended up. You’ll stay here. And then, in the morning, we’ll have breakfast together with everyone.”
Her attention lifts, from the floor, to the walls covered in clouds. The wide space, while friendlier and more furnished than it was before, gapes. Once her eyes meet mine again, I can already see the plea in them. She doesn’t want to bethatalone, either.
She wants to be nearme.
And I wish we were married and there wasn’t a single worry in her head where it concerned what might happen tonight. I wish nothing were off the table. I wish she’d never been hurt. Iwish no one had ever made her feel like losing the people she loves most is inevitable.
Taking a breath, I approach the most beautiful woman in the world, untangle her arms, and clasp her hands. “I love you.”
Her breath catches as the red in her cheeks deepens.
“Loving you means being there for you, when you need me, how you need me. I will endure the blissful torture of wanting you in other ways so you can have me in the way you need.”
She blinks, and a teardrop skates down her cheek. Another clings to her lashes, and she jolts, pulling her hands free to scrub her face. “Sorry…I…” Her eyes squeeze shut, and pain leeches into her expression as she bites her lip. “Sorry,” she croaks. “This is stupid. I’m being stupid.”
I pull her into my arms. My hands remember the shape of her, and it hurts to get a full breath. “It’s not stupid to not want to be alone,” I tell her.
