CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
Ellery
The world still feels like it has stopped. It doesn’t matter that I’ve talked to Ford. It was brief and he was quiet, surrounded by his brothers, but it was the best sound I’ve ever heard in my life.
I’ll be home soon.
Leave it to Ford to act like surviving a helicopter crash is nothing.
Leave it to him to be fearless in hopping back on another one to get to me as fast as he can.
When his car pulls into the lot, I’m running out the front door and jumping into his arms—legs wrapped around his waist, lips planted firmly on his.
He staggers backward under the force of my weight, and his chuckle fades with the kiss I give him without thought or care to who can see us. To who knows.
The kiss says so many things. I miss you. I was so scared. Never again. Words I’m still so goddamn fearful of even thinking.
And when the kiss ends, when my feet are lowered, I beat my hands against his chest. “Don’t you ever, ever, ever do that to me again.”
His laugh rings out. “Just another day at home with you beating me up one way or another.”
“Shut up.” I push him and then press my lips to his again. Another taste to affirm he’s alive. That he’s okay. That this is really him, here, in my arms.
His hands are on my face. His eyes are locked with mine. His half-cocked smile owns my heart.
“I love you, Ellery Sinclair. I love you, and I’m sick of not saying it.
I love you, and all I could think about as the chopper went down was that I hadn’t told you.
So I’m telling you now. I’m telling you so that you can do what you want with it, but nothing is changing my feelings now.
You got that? Because I’d rather make a mistake in telling you than it be a travesty that you didn’t know. ”
I hear his words. I understand what he’s saying. But I’m so overwhelmed by everything that there is. Lost in not losing him that his words are there, but my need for him to be alive drowns everything out.
The fear.
The panic.
It’s just him.
Just us.
Just another tomorrow for us to figure this out.