Chapter 33
Chapter Thirty-Three
Sierra
We stay tangled together for a long moment. He’s still very much inside me while I’m committed to keeping myself wrapped around him indefinitely. Neither of us willing to break the connection.
Eventually, reality starts to seep back in. The hard counter beneath me. The chemical smell mixing with sex and sweat. The faint drip of his photograph above us.
“We should probably…” I start.
“Yeah.” He doesn't move.
“The chemicals—”
“I know.”
“And someone might—”
“I know.” He finally pulls back, and the loss of him makes me gasp. His eyes search my face in the red light. “You okay?”
“Better than okay.” I reach up, trace the line of his jaw. “I meant it. What I said.”
“I know you did.” He catches my hand. Kisses my palm. “That's why I'm still standing.”
He helps me down from the counter. My legs are shaky, unreliable. He steadies me with a hand on my hip while we both reach for our clothes in the dark.
I watch him button his jeans. Watch the way the red light plays across his chest before he pulls his shirt back on. Watch and wonder how I ever thought I could live without this.
“Everett.”
He looks up.
“Tomorrow.” My voice is steadier than I expected. “I'll tell them tomorrow. Roman, Caleb, Nolan—all of them. I'm done hiding. I'm done pretending this isn't—”
“No.”
I blink. “What?”
He crosses back to me. Takes my face in his hands the same way I took his.
“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but if you choose us, I need you to wait.”
“But I want to—”
“I know.” He strokes his thumbs across my cheekbones. “I know you do. And you have no idea how much I want to let you. But I can't.”
Confusion wars with hurt in my chest. “I don't understand. I thought this was what you wanted. I thought—”
“It is.” His voice cracks. “God, Sierra, it's everything I've wanted for eleven years. But an hour ago, I gutted you.”
I try to look away, but he won't let me.
“An hour ago, I took the most sacred thing you ever shared with me—Eleanor and Jedediah, the initials, that story—and I used it against you. I made you the wall. I made you the reason we couldn't work.”
“Everett—”
“I don't want you making decisions about us while my words are still fresh.” His forehead drops to mine. “While the wounds are still bleeding. I don't want you committing to something because your body's still humming from really incredible darkroom sex.”
A wet laugh escapes me. “It was pretty incredible.”
“I know.” His smile is soft. Sad. “And that's exactly why I need you to wait.”
“I don't need to wait. I know what I want.”
“Then you'll still want it next week. Or next month.” He pulls back enough to look me in the eyes.
“I want you to choose me with a clear head, Sierra.
I want you to choose me in the daylight, when you've had time to think.
When the high has worn off and the fear has crept back in and you've had a chance to really consider what telling them means.”
My throat tightens. “You don't think I've considered it?”
“I think you've been considering it from the day we crossed the line.” He tucks a strand of hair behind my ear.
“I think you've been so scared of the cost that you've never let yourself actually decide.
And tonight—after everything I said, after everything we just did—tonight isn't the night to make that choice.”
“But—”
“I've waited this long, Sierra.” He says it simply. Without accusation. Without bitterness. Just fact. “I can wait a little longer. I can wait until you're certain. Until there's no part of you that wonders if you only said yes because I broke you down first.”
The tears come before I can stop them.
“Hey.” He pulls me against his chest. “Hey, no. That's not—I'm not trying to make you cry again.”
“I know.” I press my face into his shirt. Breathe him in. “I know what you're doing. You're being good. You're being so fucking good, and I don't deserve—”
“Don't.” The word is sharp. “Don't tell me what you don't deserve. Not after everything we just—” He exhales. “You deserve someone who wants you to be sure. Who wants you to choose him with your whole heart, not just the parts that are scared and desperate and trying to outrun the hurt.”
I pull back. Look up at him.
“What if my whole heart has been choosing you this entire time? What if it just took the rest of me eleven years to catch up?”
Something flickers across his face. Hope. Want. The desperate urge to believe me.
But he shakes his head.
“Then prove it to me tomorrow.” He kisses my forehead. Soft. Reverent. “Sleep on it. Wake up in the daylight. Look at your brothers' faces over breakfast and really think about what telling them means. And if you still want this—if you still want me—”
“I will.”
“—then you come find me.” His hands slide down my arms. Squeeze my fingers. “And we figure out the rest together. And we don’t do it while Tara is here. I won’t give her the satisfaction.”
The darkroom feels different now. Charged. Changed. Like the air itself knows something has shifted between us.
“Okay,” I whisper.
“Okay?”
“Okay.” I squeeze his hands back. “Tomorrow. Daylight. Clear head. And then I come find you.”
His smile breaks open, and for a moment he looks seventeen again. That boy on the mountain who looked at me like I hung the moon.
“I'll be waiting.” He brings my hands to his lips. Kisses my knuckles. “I've gotten pretty good at it.”
We clean up in comfortable silence. Wipe down the counter. Check the trays. Move through the familiar motions of closing down a darkroom for the night.
Above us, his photograph hangs still and steady. No longer dripping. Finally dry.
I stop beneath it an study the image I captured without knowing why.
Everett in golden hour light. Fifth-generation owner, framed by the window his ancestors built.
His history still being written.
Our history. Still being written.
Oh. Oh my God.
I know what I need to do.
“Ready?” His hand finds mine in the dark. He stares down at me completely oblivious to the final piece of the puzzle locking into place.
Tomorrow, everything changes. Only he doesn’t know it.
Tomorrow, I stop hiding.
But tonight—tonight I let him walk me to my door. I let him tell me to wait. Let him kiss me soft and slow in the shadows. Let him whisper "I love you" against my lips one more time before he pulls away.
"See you tomorrow," he says.
"Tomorrow," I promise.
And for the first time since we began, the word doesn't feel like a death sentence.
It feels like a beginning.