Page 102 of Under Water

Even if he can’t be within ten feet of a latte and a keyboard at the same time.

The thought makes me smile a bit, and I shrug. “Yeah, I think I am. I mean, there’s still so much for me to learn about you. I know you had a rough childhood. I know you still have nightmares about the drowning call.” He shudders at that one. “I know that what happened to Leo was one of your worst moments.”

He licks his lips again, then nods. “You’re not wrong.”

“I know that you tend to give more of yourself than people are willing to give back to you,” I go on. “I’ve seen you tear yourself into pieces for everyone else and somehow be grateful you’re allowed to do it.”

“Only for the people I love,” he says in a very small voice.

I shake my head. “You don’t have to do that with us, okay? I like you whole. I want you to feel safe with me. I want you to trust me to hold your pain with you—if you need me to. And the more time I spend with you, the more I know this is right.”

“Even after,” he says, then stops for a beat before clearing his throat. “Even after everything your ex did—in the past and today—you still want to trust someone with your heart?”

“Yeah. You,” I tell him in a whisper. “Maybe that makes me the biggest fool on the planet, but I feel how I feel. I don’t want to jump into marriage or anything, but I want this with you. I don’t want to slow down.”

He blinks, then suddenly lurches forward and buries his face in my neck. After a moment, I feel him mouthing at my skin there, laying soft, needy kisses along my pulse point.

“I want this with you too,” he murmurs in my arms. “You feel like my forever. This feels like my forever.”

His words hit me in the best way. They steal my breath, but I don’t need to breathe when I know I have him. He’s a comforting, perfect weight in my arms, and I can say without a doubt in my mind that he’s right: this feels like forever. And I will not be giving it up.

I close my eyes, and he holds me tighter and kisses my neck a little longer. And for the first time since this morning, I finally let myself feel calm.

TWENTY-ONE

RUNE

“Am I ever going back to school?” Elio asks from his spot on the couch.

I’m sitting on the window bench with my tablet in my lap, looking out at the trees. There’s a storm rolling in, and while I’m comfortable here—and somehow managed to sleep more than a few hours—the anxious feeling in the pit of my stomach will not go away.

I haven’t heard from Daphne yet or from Detective Ahmed. I have no idea what happened after Neal was arrested or if somehow he was able to go before a judge and post bail, though I’m pretty sure someone would have called me if that happened.

“I think I need to call my lawyer,” I murmur quietly.

“What?” Elio asks.

I snap out of it and turn my head to look at him, then tap my tablet screen. “I’m looking into school options.”

He frowns. “What does that even mean?”

Sipping my coffee, I shrug. “That I want to see what other options there are for you.”

“Like…changing schools?” His voice is a little high and tense.

I fight back a sigh. “Elio, they let him take you. They didn’t even check your paperwork to see if he was on there. If you think for a second I’m going to send you back to that place⁠—”

“Wait! So because one person fucked up, I’m being punished!”

“Language!”

He blinks at me. “Fuck that.”

My face starts to burn, and I yank my reading glasses off. I knew he was going to lash out. Elio has always gotten angry as a way of processing anxiety and fear. But I had assumed he wouldn’t want to go back to the place that had turned him over to Neal.

“You can be angry, but you will not be disrespectful.”

His jaw tics. “I wish I was normal so I could storm out of here and not look at your stupid face.”