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Looking up into my eyes, hers so bright and honest, she licks her lips and presses them close to my ear, and she tells me for the first time in six years. “I love you, Malcolm. I’ve always loved you.” The sound I make is half groan, half growl, and I pull her against me, closer until we can barely breathe. I don’t care about breathing—I only care about her.
“After all the things that happened, I was too afraid to fight. But I’m not afraid anymore,” she says. “Just like you’ll fight for me, I’ll fight for us. Because this?” She nods to me. “It’s worth everything.”
My lips crash into hers, my arms leave her hair to wrap around her waist and bring her off her feet. The crowd is a roar around us, but I can’t do anything but kiss my girl, drink her in and remind myself of her flavor, her scent, the way she feels against me, so right, so fucking perfect. When she leans back, I go with her, not letting her get too far.
“You have a release party to run.”
I skim my hand over her T-shirt, noting that the only thing under it is a bikini with very tiny strings. “Jacks can do it. He’s the model. I’m the brains.”
She laughs, shoving at my hands. Then she cups my cheeks, shoving her fingers back until they’ve knocked my hat off, pushing into my hair while she kisses me. “I’ll be right here, the whole time.”
I nod, turning to walk her back through the crowd. She laughs, wiggling to get down. I only hold her tighter. “Mal, I meant I’d be in the crowd waiting. Not up here.”
“Next to me,” I tell her. “You’ll be next to me, always. And I’ll always be here.”
She smiles and kisses me once more, and then she holds my hand when I set her down, standing at my side, joined eventually by Brooks and Hunter and Teo, who all support me while I address the crowd. And when I take her home that night, to the bedroom where her portrait sits, she strips off that T-shirt and tugs her strings before taking me inside of her, calling my name and holding me close, she says it again and again.
“I love you, Malcolm.”
And I repeat those words to her, rolling her until our eyes are level and our breaths are shared. “I love you, Nalani, always.”
“Always,” I repeat, and then I lose myself in her, this girl who took my heart and healed it, before giving me hers.
