Page 77 of Base Block

“Really?”

He nodded. “I want to do that. I was also thinking that it would be better for you.”

“Your important decisions shouldn’t depend on me.”

“Why not? Why wouldn’t I have you in mind? You’re always on my mind,” he told me. “I think about weird things, sometimes. You stand on one foot when you brush your teeth, like a stork. I may be spending too much time with Anara,” he admitted.

“I didn’t know I did that.”

He nodded. “I think about what you might want for dinner, and if I should stop on the way home to get more of that gum that you like. I think about you with Maverick and I hope he’s treating you well. I think about your hair up in a bun, because I like it that way. I think about missing you. I think about loving you. I love you, so you’re on my mind all the time.”

It took me a moment to accept what he’d just said. “You love me?”

“Hell, of course I do. The best part of every day is seeing you, getting to sit in this chair and hold you.”

“Why didn’t you ever tell me before?” I asked.

“Do you remember when we met?”

Of course I did. I remembered the sound of the dog’s nails, the pain in my foot, and looking into Callum’s brown eyes, hoping that he wasn’t going to hurt me. “You didn’t tell me because you still think of me like that?”

“No. I mean, you’re still the sweet girl who didn’t mind sharing dinner out of one pot and was glad that she got to sleep on my smelly couch. But you’re also different. You had been surrounded by people who treated you like absolute shit.”

I hadn’t told him about running into them again. Did it even matter? “I was expendable to them and they were to me, too. I don’t want to live like that ever again, like people are so easy to give up and give away.”

“Yeah, I’m not going to give up on you. But I liked you too much to jump in and try to start something when you were coming off that experience. And then, I was, uh…”

“Yes? What?”

“I was afraid of ruining things. What was I going to do if I tried to kiss you and you said no, and then you moved out? It would have been like getting kicked in the—in the stomach,” he finished. “I would have missed you so much, I don’t know how I could have focused on anything else. I would have been so damn lonely, and you think that I’m taking care of you, but you don’t seem to have any idea of how much you do for me. Everything runs because of you. I play football, and that’s basically it. You’re the center of my life and I’m spinning around you.”

“Is that true?”

“I don’t lie, especially not to you,” he answered.

“I’m not going to lie to you, either. There is one thing that I haven’t admitted.”

There was a pause, and I gathered my courage. Callum looked like he was expecting something terrible, so I gathered it fast and told him: “I love you, too.”

I watched him smile again. “Hell, I’m glad to hear it. I thought you were going to say that you wanted to leave. Don’t, ok? Don’t leave. Because Maverick and I will have to follow and you know how he gets in the car.”

“But he is doing better,” I said. “I think he would be safe around babies.”

“Do you mean Anara and Demitrious’s kid?”

“Or ours, if we wanted to have some. I think you’d be a really good parent,” I told him.

“I think the same thing about you,” he answered. “We need to do something important, first.”

“Yes. We should have sex.”

“Hell!” He jumped up, lifting me into the air. Then he jogged to his bedroom. “I meant getting engaged and then married, but we’ll start here.” He was smiling as he put me down on his bed.

“This is just as comfortable as mine,” I said. I undid the top of my jeans and started to pull on them.

“I must have liked your bed better because you were in it. Let me help you.”

He whipped off my pants and removed his own clothes so fast that I definitely heard something tear, but I could probably fix it. “We’re going to get a bigger bed in our new place,” he said. “We’ll have plenty of room.”