Page 157 of This Life of Mine

Silence settles between us.

“I should probably say this part out loud too,” he adds, as he pulls his chair up to me, closing the space that existed between us.

“I’ve fallen for you, Lina,” he says, gently caressing my cheek with his thumb.

The words don’t rush. They don’t need to. They settle—steady, honest, undeniable.

I let the confession hang as a faint smile forms. Alex raises his hand to cup my cheek.

“I don’t want you for just tonight. I want your good days and bad days and all the ordinary moments in between.”

His thumb brushes across my cheek, and I shut my eyes for a moment, savoring the simple tenderness of it.

No one has ever said anything like that to me. Not Cole. Not anyone. Because the ordinary moments are the ones people overlook. The quiet mornings. The lazy afternoons. The evenings spent doing absolutely nothing. They’re not grand gestures or sweeping declarations. They’re moments of life.

When I open my eyes again, Alex is still looking at me like I’m something precious. Something worth choosing. And that means more than any romantic speech ever could.

“I’ve fallen for you too,” I whisper.

His eyes search mine, as if he’s making sure he heard me correctly.

A smile tugs at the corner of my mouth. “I think I did a while ago.”

Something softens in his expression, and the sight of it makes my chest ache.

I lift my hand to his jaw, tracing the rough stubble there before finding his eyes again.

Then I lean forward and press my lips to him. A promise, sealed with a kiss.

When I pull back, my forehead rests against his.

It’s only been days. I know that. On paper, time would argue against us. But whatever exists between us doesn’t measure itself that way. It moves deeper than calendars, faster than logic, like recognition rather than discovery. And for once, that’s enough.

And whatever comes next—danger, fallout, hard truths—I know this much without hesitation. I don’t want safety that costs me connection. I want him.

He pulls back, surveying me when a smirk forms.

“Since I didn’t overstep last night…,” Alex says, smirking, “What about with Wingstop?”

Chapter forty-eight

Alex

The more Lina shared about her past, the more I realized how little the file Reese gave me, actually told me about her.

Hardship doesn’t show on paper. It only shows documented events. Gaps explained with sterile phrases likerelocatedorfamily circumstances, enough to outline a life.

I knew her stepbrother was in prison. I knew her mother had passed away. I knew she’d moved—from Texas to Vegas, then back again. But files don’t tell you what she truly experienced.

They don’t tell you about closets and being too small to protect someone you love. They don’t tell you what it does to a child to live with violence so constant it becomes background noise. They don’t capture the kind of resilience that isn’t loud or scripted, the kind that keeps going because stopping isn’t an option.

What Lina lived wasn’t a series of events; it was an atmosphere. A constant pressure that never let up long enough for her to forget it existed.

Listening to her, I see how much fucked up shit lived between the lines. How much she carried without ever advertising it. She should be bitter. Closed off. Hardened into something unreachable.

Most people get breaks in their lives. Seasons where things are allowed to be light. Lina didn’t.

Every time the world took something from her, she adjusted and kept moving. It wasn’t because she was resilient in some inspirational, poster-worthy way—but because stopping was never an option. There was always something else to manage. A next step that had to be taken whether she was ready or not.