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I wind my fingers into her hair at her nape, the silky strands dancing over my skin. “The world deserves to see your photographs.”
Her eyes slide closed, forehead dropping to my chest.
Then she exhales. “You really do have that soft side, don’t you?”
I kiss the top of her head. “It’s nothing. I—”
She presses her palm to my chest, whispers, “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“Thank you for the hoodie and the console table and sharing your Twix bars. Thank you for the gallery and letting me stay with you even though I was an unwelcome intrusion. Thank you for standing up for me with my sister and George and…” She takes a breath and I find myself holding mine. “Thank you for giving me the courage to stay right here.”
“Butterfly,” I whisper, touching her jaw. Her teeth chatter beneath my fingertips, and it’s fucking freezing. I need to get her inside, but I don’t have the strength to pull away in this moment.
“You have to know,” I murmur.
She glances up at me, eyes warm, face soft. “Know what, honey?”
“That everything I’ve done, that everything I’ll do”—I lean close, cup her cheek—“it’s all for you.”
She exhales, bottom lip quivering, and is quiet for a long moment. Her response, when it finally comes, is barely above a whisper. “I want to run away from this feeling.”
Always moving forward.
Toward the future. Away from the terror of the present.
I draw her closer, wind my fingers in her hair again. “I know.”
I’m not going to let her go so easily.
I’ll follow her if she goes, trail after her to the ends of the earth and back, until she knows that her place is here.
With me.
“But I want to stay here with you more.”
Surprise ripples through me, but only for a second. Because courage. That’s Nova too. My heart rolls over in my chest. “Fuck, butterfly.”
“I know,” she whispered, pressing her face to my throat. It’s icy cold, but I don’t push her away, don’t bring her inside, not just yet.
I wrap my arms around her and hold her close.
And I keep her exactly where she needs to be.
Forty-Nine
Nova
“Really?”I ask and immediately clamp my teeth together.
Because that response isn’t the least bit professional.
Luckily, Jocelyn just smiles, her brightly painted lips curving upward. “Reallyreally,” she says lightly, shutting my portfolio and handing it back after having spent a long time flipping through it. “I know the tourists are going to eat your stuff up.”
I suspect this statement is good—she likes what she sees.
But I also worry it’s bad—not wanting to hurt Jer’s feelings, so trying to find something shedidlike.
