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Her lips slant. “My aunt and her fiancé broke up.”
I quirk an eyebrow. “Oh. Sorry. That sucks. But …”
“They always looked so in love. He always looked so in love with her. But he left her. For no real reason. After ten years of a relationship, ten years of acting like he loved her every time I saw them together, he dropped her just like that, out of the blue, like none of it ever mattered.”
The words are spilling out of her now, hurt and anger and concern gleaming in her eyes.
I nod, trying to understand what she’s telling me.
“And Hunter, I’m falling for you, too. But I started to worry. Maybe I’m falling too hard. Because if what looks like love on the outside can end like that …”
Something sparks in my chest.
“You think I could ever stop liking you?” I ask.
She pulls her lower lip between her teeth, uncertainty furrowed in her features.
“Impossible,” I tell her. “Phoebe …” I take a deep breath again. “I can’t keep myself from saying it anymore. I love you.”
Her eyes spark, her mouth falling open.
“You’re worried you’re falling for me too hard? Fuck,” I shake my head on a laugh to myself. “I’ve fallen head over heels. Did I worry about it sometimes? Sure. But I’m through worrying. I’m ready to embrace it. Phoebe, I’m crazy in love with you. From the very beginning, when I saw you on that ice rink when we were kids, I’ve never been able to stop thinking about you. Every day of my life since then, you’ve been in my mind, in my heart. It took me a long time to realize what those feelings were. Now I know.”
Her eyes blink hard and tight, and in the amber light I catch a glossiness over them.
“Hunter, I love you, too.”
My chest swells. The best feeling in the world spreads through me, happiness radiating from my heart and making every limb buzz.
I lower my voice, hating to ask this question, scared of the answer. “Are you worried you’ll stop loving me?”
Her eyes flash. “No.” The sureness of her answer lets me take a breath of relief. “But …”
I cut her off. “You’re worried I could stop loving you.”
She nods, lips tipping down. I can see that the very thought of my love for her fading rips her up inside.
It’ll be my lifelong goal to make sure she knows every single day that it’s impossible for that to happen.
“Love can fade,” she says, her voice sad. “Can you really say you’ll always love me just as much as you do now?”
My lips twitch. “Just as much? No. I can’t promise that. When we’re old and your hair is grey, and mine is mostly gone, I’ll look at your hair, I’ll think about the time that changed its color, and I’ll think about all the memories we crammed into that time, and love you even more than I do now. I can’t promise that I’ll love you just as much as I do now. I can only promise that I’ll keep loving you more and more.”
I put my heart into every word. I want her to know there’s not a trace of lie in any of them. It’s the truth, and I feel it deep in my bones.
I’ll love Phoebe forever.
Her lips curl, her gaze softening, and a happy feeling twitches in my heart. She knows I’m telling the truth.
“Let me prove it to you every single day, Phoebe.”
She flings her arms around my neck and answers me with a kiss. My lips slide against hers, and I lose myself in her taste, in her touch, in her scent. I can’t believe how much I missed this from only three days of absence.
Going a lifetime without this? Giving it up one day? Unthinkable.
“I’m sorry, Hunter,” she says when our lips part. “It’s just … the way Jack dumped my aunt really got to me. It messed with my head. I didn’t know …”
I gently take her chin between my thumb and index finger, tilting her head so I can look deep in her eyes.
