Chapter 62
Chapter Sixty-Two
Alec
I wasn’t expecting to read . . . well, that.
I stare at my mug of tea—yes, tea, because Mara convinced me that drinking it is “how mature adults welcome the day,” right after declaring coffee too aggressive for sunrise energy.
Lina’s letter sits open on the counter beside me, the handwriting soft and familiar in a way that shouldn’t hurt but does.
I wasn’t prepared for the weight of her words.
For the way she kept trying to take care of everyone, even from a distance.
Even when she knew—fuck, did she know?—that she wouldn’t be here much longer.
It feels like a message she meant me to find long before now, but no one noticed.
I read it again, slower this time, searching for anything between the lines. Anything she didn’t say but maybe meant.
“What are you doing?”
Mara’s voice snaps through the quiet, and I flinch hard enough to smack my knee against the cupboard door. “Ow—shit.”
She stands almost in front of me. Hair twisted into a messy knot, sweater soft enough to make a saint want to sin. She looks like warmth, like quiet mornings and comfort—but her expression is pure suspicion.
“We agreed,” she says, stepping closer. “We weren’t going to read any of her letters. Like never.”
“Your letters,” I correct. “This one is addressed to me.”
She squints. “I assumed we meant all of them. Don’t you loophole me, Alec Hovarth.”
“Well, I thought it might be a shopping list,” I mutter.
She stares at me, deadpan. “Was it? A shopping list.”
I sigh, give up, and hand her the paper. “Fine. She asked me to look after you.”
She hesitates before taking it—like the paper might burn her fingers or dissolve if she breathes too hard.
Her eyes skim the words, and the change in her is immediate.
Her mouth trembles, soft and uneven, her breath catching in this tiny, fractured way that sounds like something inside her coming undone.
“Oh,” she whispers.
Then again, smaller, “Oh.”
Her shoulders curl inward as tears spill, quick and fragile. She presses her hand to her mouth as though trying to hold herself together, but she’s already slipping through the seams.
I step forward before I even register the movement.
She leans into me like she’s been trying not to for months. Like she’s tired of being the strong one. Like she finally lets herself fall because I’m close enough to catch her.
I wrap my arms around her, pulling her in. Her fingers clutch my shirt like she needs something solid to hold onto. Her forehead presses against my collarbone, warm and damp with tears.
“You are a good man,” she murmurs into my chest, her voice thick and trembling, the words landing in a place I didn’t know I’d been guarding.
I forget how to breathe.
Before I can say anything—before I can sort out the way her words cut and heal in the exact moment—she tilts her head up.
And then she kisses me.
It’s not careful. Nor tentative.
It’s a collision—soft lips, wet lashes, the faint taste of salt and grief, and something she’s been holding back too long.
Her mouth finds mine like she’s reaching for air. Like she needs this more than she needs the ground under her feet. And I feel her breath mix with mine, shaky and warm. My brain sputters out like a dying lightbulb, flickering once before going completely blind to everything but her.
The way her hand comes up to my jaw.
The way her mouth opens just a little, like she wants more.
The way her tears slide between us, warm, honest, devastating.
Heart-level truth.
And it hits me so hard I forget where the world ends, and she begins.
And then, there’s this little voice that stops everything. “So you love him, huh?”
We both jerk apart.
Mila stands two feet away, in pajamas covered in cartoon moons, holding the stuffed frog under one arm and a toothbrush in the other.
Mara makes a sound that doesn’t exist in any human language.
I freeze. Completely. My hands are still half on her waist, and I drop them like they’ve burned me.
“Mila,” Mara says, too calm, which is how I know she’s panicking internally. “Why are you awake?”
“It’s seven-thirty in the morning,” she replies, as if this explains everything. “Also, I heard voices.”
Mara drags a hand down her face. “You heard nothing.”
“I heard something and saw you two kissing,” Mila insists. Then she looks at me. “Do you love my mom now? Or does that happen later? I need to know the schedule.”
I cough so violently that I nearly swallow my own tongue.
Mara glares at me like this is somehow my fault.
“It’s too early for this,” she mutters.
“It’s seven thirty,” Mila insists.
“TOO EARLY,” I groan, because fuck me now. We’ve been so careful.
It’s not like this isn’t forever with me, but are we ready to say something like, Hey, we love each other and yes, this is the beginning of our family?
Mara scoops Mila up and marches her toward the bathroom. “Brush your teeth. Slowly. Very slowly. Like—sloth slow.”
The kid shrugs. “Okay. But I still think you love him.”
Mara disappears down the hall with her, sputtering something that sounds like a threat and a prayer mixed together.
I stand there in the kitchen with her aunt’s letter in my hand, the imprint of Mara’s mouth still tingling against mine, my chest pounding like I ran a marathon barefoot.
And I know—clearer than anything I’ve ever known—that I’m gone for her.
Completely. Irreversibly. No return flights available.
And the day hasn’t even started yet.