Page 91 of My Dead Wife's Ex Will Do
The world narrows to this moment. This room. This man.
I love you.
The words that I’ve been choking on for weeks. Longer, even, but I’ve been too afraid to say them, even to myself.
“Victor.” It comes out hoarse. “I love you too.”
His eyes widen, like he wasn’t expecting me to say it.
“Say it again,” he whispers.
“I love you.” The words come easier the second time. “I’m in love with you. I love—” I stop, almost laugh. “I don’t know how to do this. I’ve been so careful not to feel this way for so long that I don’t know how to say it.”
He’s smiling now, his eyes wet. “Keep going.”
“I love that you see me. The real me.” My throat is tight. “And you’re still here.”
He pulls me close and I’m talking into his shoulder now, not sure if he can even hear me. “I want this. I want us. Not sneaking around or pretending we’re just co-parents. I want you in my life, properly. I want to wake up next to you. I want to fight about the dishes. I want—” My lips are smashed up against his collarbone and I’m not making sense and I don’t care. “I want everything, Victor.”
I pull back and kiss him softly, tasting salt and promise. He kisses me back, deeper this time, his hands tangling in my hair. When we finally pull apart, we’re both breathing hard.
“Okay, wait,” Victor says. He pulls back, something uncertain flickering across his face. “I need to know something.”
My stomach tightens. “Okay.”
“Are you going to resent me?” The question comes out quietly. “Six months from now, a year from now, are you going to look at me and wish you’d made a different choice?”
It’s a fair question. More than fair. It’s the question I would be asking if our positions were reversed.
I take his face in both hands, making sure he can see the truth in my eyes.
“I didn’t give up my identity for you. I gave up a job that required me to deny who I am.” I kiss him, soft and quick. “You didn’t make me choose, Victor.” I’m figuring this out as I say it. “You made me brave enough to choose myself.”
His shoulders drop. “Okay.” A shaky exhale. “Okay. If you’re sure.”
“I’m sure.” I kiss him again. And again and again. “I’m all in.”
We sit there for a long moment, foreheads pressed together, breathing each other in. Outside my window, a truck rumbles past, and there’s the sound of a car door slamming, the constant noise of the city. But in here, in this room, in this moment, everything is still.
“So,” Victor says eventually, pulling back with that familiar mischievous glint in his eyes. “Are you going to tell Kelsey, or should I?”
“I’ll tell her,” I say. “Soon.”
I kiss him again because I can, because he’s here and he’s mine and I don’t have to feel guilty about it anymore. “But not right now. Right now I just want to be here with you.”
“I can work with that.” He settles back against the headboard, pulling me with him until I’m tucked against his side, my head on his chest. His heartbeat is steady under my ear, a rhythm I could get used to.
Outside, the afternoon is fading into evening. Soon we’ll have to get up, get dressed, figure out all the logistics. Soon we’ll have to tell Kelsey.
But right now, wrapped in Victor’s arms, listening to his heartbeat, right now is enough.
Right now is everything.
Forty-Five
Victor
I sign the lease for the studio space on Monday and Jason decides to tell Kelsey about us the next time she comes to his house to make dinner together, a monthly ritual they’ve had more or less since she moved out for college.
