Page 231 of Wait for Him

I’ve explored every inch of this woman’s body. I know what makes her breath catch and what makes her laugh when I’m trying to be serious. I know where she’s ticklish, where she’s sensitive, where to put my mouth if I want her to forget whatever smart-ass thing she was about to say to me.

And somehow, walking down the sidewalk with our fingers threaded together has me feeling like the schoolboy who finally worked up the nerve to hold his crush’s hand.

I keep looking down at them.

Rose catches me on the third or fourth time. "Why do you keep staring at our hands?"

"I'm not."

"You literally are."

"I'm admiring your manicure."

She looks at her bare nails. "I don't have a manicure."

"Then I have no idea what you're talking about."

She laughs and bumps her shoulder into mine, but she squeezes my hand tighter.

Yeah.

That's why I keep looking.

It shouldn't feel this significant. Maybe it wouldn't with anyone else. But with Rose, it's another ordinary thing I spent years convincing myself I'd never get to have. Walking to pizza. Holding hands. Arguing about whether I was staring at said hands. Stupid shit.

I fucking love the stupid shit.

We've moved fast these past few weeks. Extremely fast, probably, by any reasonable relationship standard. But there has never been anything reasonable about the amount of time Rose and I wasted pretending this wasn't exactly where we were headed. We did the slow part already. Took us ten fucking years. I think we've earned the right to skip a few steps.

After the night at her club, there was no easing into anything. No careful progression from dating to spending the night to leaving a toothbrush at the other person's place. We blew straight past all of it. There are hair ties fucking everywhere, and I'm beginning to suspect they reproduce when no one is looking. I found one in my shoe yesterday.

Explain that.

And I fucking love it.

Every tiny piece of evidence that we live together. That we’re comfortable enough to leave our shit around the place. That when I wake up tomorrow, there will probably be another hair tie somewhere it has no business being or one of my random socks stuffed in the couch cushion.

We've barely left each other's sides unless work forces us to. Though, Rose has decided she isn't going back to law. Not right now, anyway. When she told me, she looked almost guilty about it, which pissed me off a little. Not at her. At the fact that this woman spent so many years being useful to everybody else that she thinks she needs a closing argument for wanting to take some time and figure out what makes her happy.

She says she wants to live for a while.

Just live.

So that's what she's doing.

She's already volunteered herself as an extra set of hands for both Bennet and Jenn once the babies come, which is fucking hilarious considering I've watched Rose stare at baby equipment like she's trying to determine which end contains the explosives.

Last week, Blaire handed her a breast pump and Rose held it at arm's length.

"What the fuck does this attach to?"

Blaire told her.

Rose handed it back immediately.

So we're making progress. But she's excited about the babies. Genuinely excited. She talks about them with this softness in her voice that I try not to think too hard about because my brain immediately starts doing dangerous shit involving Rose, babies and forever.

We have been officially together for a few weeks.