Page 131 of Beautiful When He Breaks

I take a breath and turn my face into his palm for one brief second because I can. Because he lets me. Because that, too, is part of the reason I’m crying.

“I woke up, and you were here,” I say quietly.

His expression falters, panic shifting into confusion. “Okay?”

“And Mila was there,” I continue, nodding toward the cot. “And you were asleep beside me after last night, and I started thinking about everything. Kindergarten. The rugby ball. My mom’s funeral. My dad’s rejection. You under the bleachers telling me I was still me. All of it.”

I smile, though it probably looks wrecked. “I’ve been in love with you for years, Eli. I’ve known it in one way or another for most of that time, and I spent so long thinking I’d just have to carry it. That it would always be this thing sitting in my chest while I watched you build a life that didn’t have room for me in it the way I wanted.”

His thumb moves slowly over my cheek again.

“And then I woke up this morning,” I say, my voice catching despite my best effort, “and you were here. Not because I was dreaming or imagined it. You were just here. In my arms. Mine in the only way that matters because you chose to be.”

The panic drains out of him, not all at once, but enough for something softer to break through. His eyes go shiny too, which is unfair because I am barely surviving my own tears without him joining in. He shifts closer on the bed, one hand still on my face, the other coming to rest over my chest.

“You scared the shit out of me,” he says.

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry.” He huffs out a shaky breath, then gives me a look that’s equal parts wounded and furious. “Actually, be a little sorry. I woke up and thought someone died.”

I laugh, and it’s enough to loosen the knot in my chest. “No one died.”

“Good, because I’m too tired to murder anybody before coffee.”

“There’s the man I love.”

He stares at me for a second, and then the softness in his face becomes almost unbearable. “Say that again.”

My heart lurches, but I don’t hesitate. “The man I love.”

Eli closes his eyes briefly, and when he opens them, his expression is stripped down in that way that still feels new between us. He hasn’t quite learned how to hide from me now that he’s decided not to.

“I love you too,” he says.

The words hit just as hard this time; maybe they always will.

I lean forward, and he meets me halfway, kissing me softly enough that my chest aches with it. There’s no heat in it at first, not the urgent kind anyway. Just morning breath and salt and the warm press of his mouth saying what neither of us knows how to say enough.

His hand slips to the back of my neck. Mine finds his waist under the sheet. We stay like that until Mila gives another sleepy grunt, and Eli breaks the kiss with a breath that sounds close to a laugh.

“She’s going to ruin the moment,” he murmurs against my mouth.

“She has excellent timing.”

“She has terrible timing.”

“She got that from Ryan.”

Eli snorts softly, then rests his forehead against mine. “Years, huh?”

I sigh because I know that tone. “Don’t make it weird.”

“I’m absolutely making it weird.” His thumb strokes along my neck. “You loved me when I had braces.”

“Unfortunately.”

“You loved me when I thought cargo shorts were acceptable formal wear.”