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Kyle: Open your door.
I bolted upright and flew to the door. When I opened it, tired blue eyes stared back at me. The most gorgeous blue eyes that turned green when he was about to kiss me.
“What are you doing here?” He’d implied that he couldn’t come by tonight, yet here he was, standing on my front porch at almost ten o’clock. I didn’t care about his reasoning. I only cared that he was here.
“I’m sorry I didn’t respond to your last text. I didn’t see it until the plane landed and I turned my phone back on, and then I was in too big a hurry to get here.”
“You were on aplane?”
“Yeah. I was called to New York early.”
Oh. But… “Why aren’t you still in New York?”
He shook his head. “It’s not where I’m supposed to be.”
My heart rate picked up just a little. “Then where are you supposed to be?”
“I was hoping here.” His eyes were so blue and filled with so much desperation. “With you.”
I stepped forward, and he opened his arms so I could step into his embrace. We stayed like that for a long time, just soaking in one another. Finally, he kissed the top of my head and pulled back slightly to look down at me.
“I’m so sorry. I should have told you.” Wearing the most heartbreaking expression, he searched my face. “I’m not perfect, Tina. Far from it. I’m broken, a bit selfish, and I struggle to get out of my head.”
“I don’t need perfect.” I ran my fingers through his hair. “I just need you.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
KYLE
“I thoughtabout all the things I wanted to say to you on the flight home.” I pressed my lips against her forehead, inhaling her sweet smell. “But now all I can feel, all I can see, is you.”
Nick and I had left things opened-ended. He told me to figure out my crap and that he’d check in with me again next week. But during the flight home, I knew. If Tina could forgive me, give me a chance, then I didn’t want to do long distance. I wanted to be here with her and the kids full time.
A gust of wind blew around us, sending a chill up my spine, and I wrapped her tighter in myembrace.
“Come inside?” she whispered, her breath skating across my neck.
I nodded but made no move to loosen my hold on her, afraid she’d disappear if I did. The wind howled again. The storm they were calling for was getting closer.
“You make me want to be better. To focus on the good and try to see the silver lining in everything.” My heart felt heavy in my chest as I dug down deep and gave her my truths. “The way you can look at the possibility of rain and smile because it means you won’t have to water the grass or see a long line as more time to enjoy being together.”
She pulled back, her lips curling into a smile. Then she toed up and brushed her lips against mine. This was where I was meant to be. Here. With her and those kids. At that moment, what Nick meant made perfect sense. Maybe I was always meant to find them.
When a shiver racked through her and the rain started pouring down around us, I picked her up, her feet dangling above the ground, and stepped inside.
I sat in one of the oversized armchairs, pulling her with me and settling her on my right leg.
“Kyle.” She laid her head on my shoulder. “I want you to feel comfortable enough to tell me anything. I know some things are hard, but I need to know you trust me, that you trust us enough to let me in.”
Until she came along, I’d never seen the point of letting anyone into the chaos of my head. She was the first person I’d ever felt the need to open up to.
“Last year, after I was discharged and sent home injured, all I wanted was to be left alone. I didn’t want to talk. I was sick of being asked how I was doing.” I buried my face in her neck and inhaled. “Then you came along, and I felt this peace. Like how it feels when you come home after a long day away.”
She pulled her legs up and over my left thigh, lying back against my right side.
“Until that day on the beach, I hadn’t talked about my best friend’s sister’s drowning.” I needed her to understand, and I had no idea if she was or I was fucking this up more.
She sat straight up, looking at me with wide eyes. “What? How?”
