I shifted closer, putting my chest to her back and wrapping my warmth around her. This felt different from the cave. This was my space, my bed, and we both knew it meant something neither of us had named yet.
“My mother said things about my father yesterday,” she said. “About how he’d run from difficult conversations. Disappeared rather than deal with what he should’ve.”
“What did you say?”
“I was angry. I told her I hadn’t thought of it that way and that I’m not him.” Her fingers tightened around mine. “But the thing is, I think I saw it sometimes. Not often, but enough that I should’ve remembered. He’d go out on a late-night call that could’ve waited until morning. Or he’d work in the barn forhours after a heated discussion with her. I never thought of it as running.”
“It may have been the only way he knew how to process difficulty.”
“Or perhaps hewasrunning, and I inherited that too.”
I pressed my forehead against the back of her head, breathing in her scent. “You could be anywhere else, but you chose to be here. That’s not running.”
She turned in my arms, her face close enough that I could count her eyelashes in the dim light. “What is it then?”
“Staying even when it’s uncomfortable. If you were someone who ran, it would be much easier to leave.”
Her lips found mine, and I kissed her back with all the things I couldn’t say yet. About how she fit in my life and in the small corners I’d thought would always be empty.
When we pulled apart, I understood something I hadn’t before. Laina wasn’t running from her mother. She was terrified of becoming her father, of disappearing into work and distance when things got hard. Carol’s arrival hadn’t threatened Laina’s new life. It had forced her to face whether she’d truly chosen it or whether she’d only run to the nearest exit.
But she was still here.
In my bed. In my arms. Choosing to stay even when staying was uncomfortable.
That was everything.
Laina’s breathing evened out and deepened, her body relaxing against mine.
I stayed awake. I’d been yearning for this woman for weeks, and now she was here, safe in my arms.
She fits here,I thought, the words forming like a notebook entry.She fits in a way I didn’t know to hope for.
Sofia’s wings fluttered in her sleep, and somewhere outside, a creature called into the darkness.
I held Laina close and let myself believe that morning wouldn’t change anything at all.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
LAINA
Iwoke to the realization that my hand had been moving in circles on Brovish’s chest for who knows how long. His heartbeat thrummed beneath my palm, and his breathing had changed from the deep rhythm of sleep to something more aware.
My cheek rested against his ribs. My leg had tangled with his during the night. His arm curved around my waist like it had always belonged there.
Should I pretend I was still asleep?
“You’re thinking,” he said, his voice morning rough.
I tilted my head back to find him watching me, his hair tousled across the pillow making him look unguarded in a way I’d never seen during daylight hours.
“How long have you been awake?” I asked.
“Long enough to wonder if you’d stop touching me when you realized you were doing it.”
My hand had gone motionless on his chest. I made myself continue the circle I’d been tracing. “Is this better or worse?”
His breathing hitched. “Much worse. I didn’t want to move and wake you.”
