“Melissa,” he said, and there was somethin’ in the way he said my name that made my chest pull tight. “Please.”
I shook my head at him, smilin’ despite myself.
“I love you,” I said again, steadier this time. “Happy?”
He let out a breath like he’d been holdin’ it for months.
“Yeah,” he said softly. “Yeah, I am.”
He sat back for a second, rubbin’ his hand over his jaw like he was gatherin’ his own words.
“My turn?” he asked.
I nodded.
“I’m sorry,” he said first. “For real. For the following. The lurkin’. The pop-ups. For makin’ you feel like I was takin’ your choice away in the name of protectin’ you.”
He held my gaze.
“I know what it’s like to have decisions made around you like you furniture,” he went on. “I did that to you. Even if my heart was in the right place, my methods was fucked up. I don’t wanna be another man you gotta heal from.”
My throat tightened.
He kept talkin’.
“When I love somebody, I go all the way,” he said. “I don’t know how to do half. With Mo, that devotion made sense. We was married. We built a life. With you… I took that same intensity and threw it at you before we even said what we was doin’. I tried to build a forever on top of a ‘we just havin’ fun’ story. That’s on me.”
He leaned forward again, forearms on his thighs, hands clasped.
“I’m still that same man,” he said. “I’m still gon’ love you loud. I’m still gon’ protect what’s tied to me. That not changin’. But I can change how I do it. I can love you without hoverin’ over you like a drone.”
I laughed a little at that even as my eyes burned.
He reached out, restin’ his hand on the table, palm up, not touchin’ me unless I met him there.
“So here’s what I’m sayin’,” he continued. “I love you. Been loved you. Been know I wanted you in my life for real. I want you as my woman. Not my ‘fun.’ Not my ‘we see how it go.’ My woman. On paperwork one day, if that’s where this end up. I want to build shit with you that last longer than a trip.”
He took a breath.
“But I also want you to feel safe,” he added. “Safe with me, not from me. So from here on out, I’m not hidin’ in bathrooms. I’m not sittin’ outside your buildin’ unless we already talk about it. If I’m worried, I’ma call. If you don’t answer, I’ma leave a message. If it feel like an emergency, I’ma say that, not play detective.”
He looked at me hard.
“And I need somethin’ back,” he said. “I need you to stop disappearin’ and callin’ it protectin’ yourself. If you need space, say that. If you mad, say that. Don’t make me guess where I stand and then be mad at how I respond.”
His voice didn’t have no edge.
Just truth.
I slid my hand into his.
“Deal,” I said quietly.
His fingers closed around mine.
We sat like that for a minute, hand in hand across Nana’s little table.
It felt… calm.
