Page 237 of You've Got Hate Mail
“Joking.”
I shift on the couch, lifting myself up and twisting so that I can pull her into my lap. “You’re brilliant every day.”
“I’m really not.”
“Yes, you are. Brilliant. Kind. Brave. Generous.” I kiss her cheek. Her ear. Her jaw. Her neck. “Perfect.”
She snorts, then makes a soft mewling noise as my lips reach her collarbone.
“Do you know my favorite thing about you?” I murmur.
“That I’m always willing to get naked?”
“I like that, but it’s not my favorite.”
“That I sometimes wear my underwear inside out instead of washing it?”
“I prefer you just go commando.”
“Huh. I might be brave enough to do that more often again.”
As if kissing her wasn’t enough to make me hard as granite… “My favorite thing about you is that everything about you is my favorite.”
“Cheating.”
“You’re brave enough to make mistakes even though you were taught not to. You’re brave enough to make new friends when old friends betrayed you. You’re brave enough to tell me you love me when I was too afraid to say it back. To even acknowledge what it was. And you’re brave enough to follow through with getting on the internet naked again if you think that’s what it’ll take to solve a problem for someone you love. Your courage is—it takes my breath away, Cricket.”
“Do you know how easy you are to love?”
I shake my head. “I’m not. Not next to you.”
“Maybe you’ve never met yourself?”
I smile against her shoulder. “I like this tank top. More Cricket skin.”
“Distracting me?” she whispers, her voice getting breathier as I trail kisses down her arm.
“Have to be lovable somehow.”
“Heath.”
She’s told me.
She’s told me so many times, the words feel imprinted on my heart.
I love you.I love you for the man you are and the man you choose to be every day.
She makes it okay for parenting—forhumaning—to not always be easy.
She makes me feel like I don’t have to be everything for everyone.
“You chose me,” I whisper. “You chose to love me.”
She angles her head toward mine. “I don’t know how anyone could choose not to love you.”
I capture her lips, and soon I’m rising from the couch, carrying her to my bedroom.
I shut the door behind us softly, then set Cricket on my bed.
