“I thought about you,” I whisper. “All the time. In that office, in those meetings, in the car with Evan… I kept thinking about how you look at Lila. How you look at me. Like… like I’m not a problem to solve.”
Dallas’s throat works. “You ain’t.”
“I know,” I whisper. “I know now.”
Dallas’s eyes drop to my mouth, then back up. Like he’s asking permission without words.
“I don’t want to make this harder,” he says quietly. “You’ve been through hell. If you need me to just… be your friend again, I can do that. I’ll do it. I don’t want to lose you.”
My heart stutters.
I lift my shaking hands and cup his face.
Dallas goes still like he’s afraid to move wrong.
“I don’t want just your friendship,” I whisper. “I want… you. I want your arms. I want your steadiness. I want your terrible coffee and your stupid calm presence that makes my nervous system stop screaming.”
Dallas’s mouth twitches, but his eyes shine.
“I want the version of me that exists when I’m with you,” I whisper. “The one that doesn’t have to perform.”
Dallas swallows, throat tight. “Faith…”
The way he says my name makes my chest hurt.
“I love you,” I whisper, and the words come out like a confession and a prayer at the same time. “I think I’ve loved you for years, and I just buried it under my father’s voice and my own fears, and the idea that I wasn’t allowed to want something that didn’t look impressive on paper.”
Dallas stares at me like he’s been hit.
His hands come up slowly, covering mine on his cheeks.
“Say it again,” he whispers, like he needs to hear it twice to believe it.
I laugh through tears. “I love you.”
Dallas’s breath shudders.
He closes his eyes, forehead dropping toward mine like he’s trying not to fall apart.
Then he opens them, and his gaze is raw.
“I love you too,” he says. “I’ve loved you since we were kids, and you used to climb the hayloft like it was a mountain and dare me to follow. I loved you when you left, and I tried not to. I loved you when you showed up on my porch in that dress, and I swear, I thought I was losing my mind.”
My chest caves in.
“And I love you now,” he continues, softer. “So damn much it scares me.”
I swallow hard. “Me too.”
Dallas’s thumbs brush my cheeks, gentle.
“Can I kiss you?” he asks, quiet and careful.
The question alone nearly breaks me.
Because I’ve lived in a world where men take, where they assume, where consent is treated like an annoying formality.
Dallas asks like my answer matters.
