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I spend long, long moments breathing in, trying to hold in the embarrassing emotion that flows through me as my throat gets tight.
A simple moment, something that most would take for granted.
Waking up next to the man you love.
But it’s something I’ve never truly had other than that very first time.
And I realize now it’s something I thought I’d never get.
“Good morning, fiorella,” the low, croaky voice says.
Morning voice.
Dante has a morning voice.
That’s what makes me lose it, what has me bursting into tears.
“Baby, what?” he says, his voice full of concern as his hands move under my arms, dragging me to him.
I continue to cry, mourning what I knew I missed but not realizing how much I did. How badly I wanted this.
“Baby, no. What’s wrong? Are you okay?” His hand moves smoothly through my hair as I lie on top of him, my face buried in his neck. “Lilah, you’re scaring me. What’s wrong?”
I sniff a few times, forcing myself to get it together before popping my head up and looking at him. He’s so damned handsome, his eyes concerned but still a bit dazed with sleep, a single line on his cheek from the pillow.
“You have a morning voice,” I say because it’s the only thing I can think of. His hand moves, pushing my hair back, and he stares at me as he tries to decode my words.
He’s so damned good at that, hearing what I say and understanding what I mean, even if I don’t fully grasp it. His face goes soft when he gets it, his eyes holding just a hair of sadness.
“Good morning, Delilah,” he says, then he uses the hands on my head to pull my face to him, to press his lips to mine.
A good morning kiss.
I force myself not to cry through this, too. To enjoy how his lips feel on mine first thing in the morning, the grogginess of sleep still in my veins as his lips move softly over mine. When the kiss ends, he pulls back and looks at me, his thumb moving to brush a tear aside before pressing his lips there.
Like he’s taking away any sadness and replacing it with pure, unadulterated love.
When he pulls back, he’s smiling at me.
“Morning sex or coffee first?” he says.
I smile.
And even though I barely function without a first thing in the morning jolt of caffeine, I roll on top of him, kissing him instead of answering his question.
Forty-Two
-Lilah-
We spend the morning in bed, but around noon, we finally make it out of the cabin to a little downtown area, where we grab a table at the cutest little sandwich shop.
Nothing is like I remember, but I was a kid when I came here, and I pretty much only remember jumping in the lake with Lola and making s'mores and feeling like I had a place in the world, my mom still there to hold our family together.
Funny how things come full circle. As we walk around, hand in hand and out in the sunshine, though bundled up because it's fall in upstate New York, I feel like I'm whole.
I feel like I'm finally becoming the person I was supposed to be. Not that Dante makes me that person, but like he helped to dig her out, if that makes sense.
We keep walking and then stop, Dante looking down at me with a smile.
