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Jay takes the box of Bud from under my arm. “Catch you later, man.”
I don’t respond as he walks away. I focus on putting one foot in front of the other and getting to Dayna. I can’t resist reaching out and turning her hair in my fingers, just to make sure I’m not imagining her standing in front of me.
“What are you doing here?”
“I was wondering whether you have any plans for Christmas?”
Is this a test? Or does she know I really have disowned my father? “I don’t have any plans for Christmas.”
“Okay. Me neither. I thought maybe we could keep each other company.”
When my lungs remember how to breathe, I take a huge inhale. “What changed your mind?”
Her lips curl into a lopsided smile, and she looks up at me through her lashes with those mesmerising brown eyes. She’s stunning. “A very expensive therapist. I paid her hundreds of pounds to tell me I’m fucked up, and in her professional opinion, you’re pretty screwed-up, too.”
I chuckle and move my fingertips from her hair to her cheek. Even in the cold, her skin feels like silk.
She closes her eyes and presses back against my hand. “She said we were both hurting, and we might not be perfect individually but…” She opens her eyes. “Maybe we could bleed together.”
I take hold of her face in both my hands and drop my forehead to hers, breathing her in.
“I don’t know how to fix things, Clark. I’m lost. All I know is that we’ve both been lied to. I feel like my whole world has crashed down around me. And you’re the only thing that’s true. You’re the only truth and the only thing that seems real.”
“I don’t know what to do either, Dayna.”
“I want to smile again. I want to stop doing things because I feel obliged to do them. I want to do something that I want to do, and mostly, I want to be happy. The last time I remember feeling completely, truly happy was when we were together.”
My heart beats faster than it has in weeks, my pulse higher than I’d get it sparring with Sam. There’s every chance I’ll fuck this up. I know it, and I’m terrified. But holding her now, I feel like I can finally take the breath I’ve been holding for four years.
“Say you love me,” I whisper against her lips. “Tell me you love me and I’ll keep fighting for us, Dayna. I’ll fight for the rest of my life.”
“I do.”
“Say it.”
“I love you, Clark. I never stopped.”
“I love you, too. So much.” I close my eyes and press my lips to hers, pulling her waist into mine, kissing the last woman I’ll ever kiss.
