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“Laura, I love you.”
I freeze.
David freezes.
Jessi, who had just opened the door with Angie at her side, freezes.
Unsurprisingly, Jessi is the one who unfreezes first. “Nope, not our business,” she mutters and then closes the door, Angie’slittle voice insisting she wants to see me fading away as Jessi drags her out.
I don’t look away from David. It doesn’t even seem like he noticed his ex-wife and child coming in.
“What did you say?” I whisper. I shift, moving as far as I can. I manage to get sitting fully upright, my feet on the floor, but I can’t quite get up.
David rushes over. He falls—falls hard, hard enough to make a sound—to his knees, and gathers my hands in his.
“Laura, I love you so fucking much,” he confesses. “I think I have since the day we met. Or the day after, at the very least, when you spilled your coffee all over your horrible suit?—”
“I think it was your fault, really,” I interject.
David continues on. “I love you, Laura James, and I don’t care that it’s complicated. Jesus, Laura, driving you here to the hospital was the most terrifying moment of my life. Not knowing if I could drive fast enough, if you were okay, why you fainted. Not knowing?—”
He stops, squeezing his eyes shut. Tears fall out, and he presses his forehead very gently against my knee.
Shocked, my hand goes to his hair. I pet him gently, and wait for him to say something else.
“I love you, Laura, and even if I never see you again, I need you to know, I’ll always love you.”
The words take a while to sink in. I can barely breathe, let alone think.
But when David pulls back, his cheeks burning red now with embarrassment, he starts to remove his hands from mine. I’m spurred into action by this, and I tug him towards me.
He falls, landing beside me on the hospital bed. We sit side-by-side, and I look deep into his eyes.
“Is this just because I was hurt?” I whisper, searching his gaze for an answer.
David’s hand cups my face tenderly. “This is because life istoo damn short, Laura James, to pretend for a second that I’m not in love with you.”
My heart hammers in my chest. Slowly, I lean in, and I press my mouth against his. I kiss him softly.
When we pull away, our foreheads rest against each other’s. His lips kiss mine again, soft and just a bit too far away, and shivers erupt down my spine.
“I love you, too, David,” I whisper. “I want you. Even if we have to be apart, even if you don’t want what I want?—”
“I do,” David says, his voice firm. He holds my face in his hands and kisses the bridge of my nose, the high points of my cheek, my forehead. Over and over, he kisses me, murmuring again and again,I do.
“David,” I say, and he pulls back just enough to look at me. He’s grinning hard enough that his eyes have wrinkles. “I mean it. I love you. I don’t care that you’re my brother’s ex-husband-in-law or that you have kids. I don’t care that I’m too young for you. I don’t care about our reputations or that you’re moving to France?—”
“Fuck France,” David says fervently. “I’ll be wherever you want me to be, Laura, I promise. We can both go or neither of us can go or we can go at the same time for visits. Anything. Iloveyou, Laura.”
“I love you, David.” We kiss again. He tastes like stale coffee, and it’s still somehow intoxicating. The feeling of his beard against my skin, his hands warm and big on my neck, his body safe and comforting. I want to curl into him, press against him—it’s only when my lungs protest that I pull away, and even then, I know I’ll be back for more the second I’ve got enough air.
For the first time since we’ve been together, we don’t have an expiration date. The freedom is almost dizzying.
There’s a loud noise, almost like a bang or someone dropping something, and then the door handle jiggles. This time when the door opens, Lewis is at the helm, and Jessi isn’t managing to pull him out like she did Angie.
“—interrupt,” she’s saying, and then sighs, throwing her hands up. “Whatever, I tried.”
“Hi,” I say, waving. And then my big brother also bursts into tears.
