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“I don’t know how to do this with you,” I admit, voice barely audible. “Some days I think I’m okay. That I’ve figured out how I feel about you. About Fletch. About everything. And then you say something like ‘nursery’ and suddenly it’s like my heart’s sprinting a marathon and my head’s on fire.”
Kingston doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t ask for more than I’m ready to give.
“You feel something for me.”
It’s not a question. It’s a truth wrapped in barbed wire.
“I do,” I whisper. “But it’s messy.”
“We’ve always been messy,” he says. “You’re just used to cleaning up on your own.”
I glance over, meet his gaze, and for a second I see everything I’ve been trying not to name—safety, comfort, history, maybe even love. The kind of love that builds slowly, quietly, without asking for permission. The kind of love that’s existed between us before.
“I’m scared,” I confess, because I’ve lost too much and leaned on too few and Kingston’s becoming something dangerous—something essential—and I don’t know what to do with that.
He brushes a hand over my knuckles. Just that. Nothing more.
“You can rely on me, Mya.”
And maybe that’s the scariest part.
“I already do,” I confess quietly.
The words hang between us, thick and electric, like the charged silence before a thunderclap.
My heart does this weird skip thing, like it’s trying to keep pace with a moment I didn’t see coming. And maybe I should be basking in it. Soaking in the sweetness of his confession like it’s warm sun on bare skin. But I’m too practical for that. Too bruised. Too me.
So instead, I circle back. Because that’s what I do—loop back to the safe stuff, the small things, the things that don’t carry the weight of everything I’ve been through.
“So… what do you think it’ll look like?” I ask, voice softer now. “If you start dating someone again. Someone who’s…” I gesture vaguely between us, my hand brushing the curve of my belly. “Pregnant. With twins. From another man.”
His brows lift just slightly, like he’s surprised I even asked. And then he shrugs—shrugs, like I just asked what kind of cereal he wants for breakfast.
“I think it’ll look like whatever we want it to,” he says.
I blink. “Kingston—”
“Mya.” He leans in, elbows on knees, fingers laced like he’s steadying himself before jumping off a cliff. “I’ve got these feelings for you that are both old and new at the same time. Like they’ve been buried under years of bullshit, and now that I’ve finally dug them up, they’re all shiny and raw and real.”
God.
I think I forget how to breathe.
He keeps going, and each word is a low-voltage shock to the chest.
“It’s been easy. Us. Even when it’s not. And I’m not saying we don’t have crap to figure out. But I need you to know something—”
“King—”
“I want all of it, Mya,” he says, voice rough now. Real. “But only if it’s with you.”
It hits like a sucker punch to the gut.
No preamble. No soft cushioning. Just a raw truth tossed into the space between us like it doesn’t have the power to detonate everything I’ve been clinging to.
He watches me, gaze steady. Serious. And when I don’t say anything—because what the hell can I say to that—he exhales slowly and leans closer.
“You remember how it was in high school?” he asks, his voice a husky murmur now, like we’re sharing secrets in the dark. “Before everything went sideways?”
