Chapter 23 Rowan
ROWAN
Her skin is slick, her heartbeat wild. “Hey,” I murmur, voice low, wrecked. “You okay?”
She nods, her eyes distant and dizzy. I can’t stop myself—I kiss her again, softer this time, a full-mouth kiss that feels like apology and claim all at once. She tastes like sweat and salt and something that feels too much like home.
“Christ. You undo me, so you do.” I scoop her up before I can think better of it.
Her legs hook around my waist on instinct, and we make it to the bed in a stumble of knees and whispered curses.
The mattress groans under us, the world narrowing to the rustle of sheets and the sound of our breathing trying to find a rhythm again.
I collapse beside her, propped on one elbow, and just look.
Her face is flushed, mouth swollen, eyes half-lidded and soft in the light.
I can’t remember the last time something this beautiful looked back at me without fear or pity.
My hand finds her nose, traces down to her mouth.
“It feels weird to share you with anyone, Willow,” I admit before I can stop myself.
My voice sounds too bare even to myself, maybe especially to myself.
“Hard to believe they see you like this too.”
She reaches up and touches the scar near my ribs, the one I forget I have until someone else’s hand finds it, a belt buckle slashed across my argumentative side. “You think that makes you less?”
Less. The word tries to strangle me, so I try to make light of it.
I give a laugh that’s supposed to sound careless, but it just comes out tired.
I give in and tell her, “I meant it.” My voice is rough in the quiet.
“About being in. About family being made, not granted. I just—” I tilt my face toward the faint light bleeding in through the blinds.
The porch bulb outside paints everything blue and strange.
“I don’t know how to do this right. I have instincts for leaving, not staying. ”
She lies back, eyes on the ceiling. “You came back.”
Her words land in my chest like a heartbeat. I did. God help me, I did.
The house is silent again, just the hum of the AC and the distant city noise. I shift onto my side, press my mouth to her shoulder, and let the truth slip out in a whisper. “I did.”
Her fingers thread into my hair. For a second, I just breathe her in—soap, sweat, skin—all the small human things I’ve spent years pretending I didn’t want.
“Can I stay?” The words come out quieter than I mean them to, small and boyish, like I’m afraid the answer could still be no.
She turns into me, hand resting over the scar again. “I want you to stay ’cause you wanna. Not ’cause you think you gotta stake a claim.”
I meet her eyes. For once, the noise in my head shuts up. “I want to.”
She reaches over and clicks off the lamp. The room leans into blue, and I shift closer, sliding one arm under her head and the other across her middle. Her body fits against mine like she’s always belonged there. I can feel her heartbeat slowing under my hand, steady and sure.
Family isn’t a verdict, I think. It’s a door you keep walking through.
When she falls asleep, her breath evens against my chest. I stare at the ceiling for a long time, trying to memorize the sound of it—the soft, stubborn proof that I stayed.