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I frown, eyes burning. “You mean that?”
“I can’t promise the person I’ll be because of it, but I do love you, Lance. I’ve never stopped. I hate that I made you think for even a second that I didn’t. That I was so afraid—a coward—to live it. That I still am.”
I chuckle despite the ache.
Taking her face, I lift it up. “Sunshine, I know what it is to not be loved.” I brush my thumb over her full bottom lip. “This isn’t it.”
“You’ll never not know it,” she says desperately, stepping closer. “I could never not.”
“I know,” I whisper against her temple. Because it’s in everything that she does. The dresses she wears. The songs she plays. The walks we take around the estate. Choosing to sleep in a shitty chair just to know I can sleep, too. I tuck a piece of wet hair behind her ear. “You’ve been telling me for weeks.”
She nods.
“I love you, too.” I lean in and kiss her.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispers, pulling back. “For everything I said—”
“No more apologies.” I take her hand and pull her back to me, wrapping an arm around her shoulders to keep her warm. Our foreheads meet and hold. “I love you so fucking much, Scar.”
Her stare stays fixed on my own, and in this moment, I know that this is it.
This is us.
Forever.
“Where do we go from here, Lance?”
My brow furrows against hers. “Probably therapy.”
Her gaze falters before she laughs and pushes against my chest.
I wet my lips, dusting my nose against hers as I smile. “Home, Baby Lowell. Even if it takes us a lifetime to get there. We make it a promise, no matter what comes at us, to always make it home.”
THIRTY-TWO
Scarlet
My feet ache, I’m drained beyond comprehension, and I have six hours left of my shift.
Lance has been officially home for three weeks. When we told Ave it was going to be for good, she reacted exactly as we knew she would.
She was ecstatic.
I came back to work a day later, and to say the transition after so much time off has been hard would be an understatement. I feel different. I have Lance now. Ave has her daddy. It brings less guilt over working long hours—no matter how badly I want to be at home with them.
It means Nina isn’t left with a house full of children, and tea on the table when I get in, and a bath run with candles, and a body that keeps me awake past respectable hours of the night whilst it worships my own.
Work at the hospital hasn’t gotten any harder. What I leave at home just got a million times better.
“I need a coffee.” I sigh, pushing back from the desk. “Anyone else?”
Mia and Annie look at me as if I’m crazy.
The cafeteria is busy, and we join the queue, shuffling forward every couple of minutes.
“We should get a machine in the break room,” Mia says.
Annie turns and shakes her head. “We tried it in my first F1 year. It was used for a month, and nobody cleaned it.”
