“I do know.”
His lips brush mine, soft and tender. “I come with an unwell mother.”
“I know.”
A kiss lands on my jaw. “And custody of six girls who are really great but also really, really mean. After you graduate, when we’re finally able to be together, the youngest girls will still be with me.”
“I know.”
Another kiss, this time on my collarbone. “And a tired, miserable brain.”
“I know.”
“I’m not sure if I ever want kids.”
“Neither am I.”
“I’m exhausting to be around on my lowest days.”
“I want you. I want all of your baggage, too. I love your mom. I love the girls. I want everything about you.”
The relief on his expression almost brings me to my knees. He really thinks I don’t understand. That I’ll run when his homelife gets too hard, or when his depression gets worse.
“I want the messy life, Alex. The big fights, the small ones, the leaking washing machines and the car breakdowns and the grumpy teenage girls. I want a normal life, full of people and all their issues.”
Now he’s full-on smiling. “I want that, too.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” He swallows, brushing a tear from my bottom lashes. I didn’t even realize it was there. “I want a cottage, and an overgrown garden. I want long, lazy afternoons between your thighs. I want to watch you go gray. I want fresh flowers, and an old wife. And if we did have children, they’d never fear the sound of their father’s footsteps.”
I feel a second tear fall, slow and silent as it trickles across my cheek. For someone who refuses to think about his future because he struggles to believe he’ll have one, the magnitude of his confession isn’t lost on me. “We can have all of that. We just need to get through thethings.”
“I can hold on.”
“Hold on until midnight. Tread water until midnight.”
I feel his smile against the top of my head, arms tightening around me. “Until midnight.”
WHEN I WAKE,Alex is sitting on the end of the bed in a black hoodie andthoserugby shorts. His bags are packed at his feet, and disappointment I have no right to feel swirls within me.
I’m exhausted. A night of dreams about Laura and the forest have left me feeling worse than I did when I went to bed.
“I have to leave in half an hour for my flight.”
“Okay,” I croak, trying to keep my tone cheerful. “That’s okay.”
Something in his expression tells me there’s more.
“Brendan has my father on CCTV about five hundred yards from our house.”
Dread punches me in the gut.
“In New York?”
“Yeah. Last night. He’s masked, but it’s definitely him.”
“Shit, Alex.”
