Page 200 of Healed

Almost perfect.

“I never would have imagined saying this, but… doesn’t he look awful without his beard?”

Dante chuckled in my ear. “He looks like a mole rat.”

“That’s a bit harsh. But his face is giving shaved vagina vibes, and I don’t like it.”

“That’s not harsh, then, no?” he asked.

“Sometimes the truth is harsh.”

He kissed the top of my head, and I felt his lips curve in a smile.

“I give it five days before he starts growing it again.”

“Mate,” I scoffed. “He’s already started. Look at that stubble. By the time she gets knocked up, he’ll be a full-on wizard again. I guarantee she’ll be in the labour suite, screaming her heart out as she births his big-headed offspring, and he’ll be harassing the nurses for some lotion for his ratty beard.”

“You’re getting a bit ahead of yourself, aren’t you?”

I looked at Vienna and Gabriella once more and sighed. “No. Somehow, I don’t think I am. This is just how things were meant to be. It just took a while for them to align.”

We went quiet, gently swaying in time to the music. Dante kept his arms wrapped around me tight, kissing me every so often—the side of my head, my hair, even along my neck, nuzzling against me.

“Who would have thought it?” I sighed.

“Thought what?”

“That after all these years we would still be together—hell, that we would both still be alive. That our best friend would have the love of his life, despite everything. It’s perfect.”

“Why, Rachel, are you getting soft in your old age?”

I slapped his arm in response before leaning back into him, not wanting to be apart from him for a second.

Fucking hell, I was getting soft in my old age.

“Do you know what I would have thought?” Dante asked, chuckling into my neck.

“What’s that?”

“I would have thought that after all these years you would have told me you loved me.”

“What?” I said, twisting around in his arms to see him grinning at me.

“You’ve never said it. You realise that, don’t you?”

“Don’t be so ridiculous,” I scoffed. “Of course I’ve said it.”

“No, Rachel. No, you haven’t.”

“I said it when…”

I racked my brain for an example—any example.

But none came.

Fuck.

“Go on…” he laughed.