Chapter 33 #2
When I reach the greenhouse, I pause, steadying myself, hands slightly shaking as I grasp the handle. I take a breath, pull open the creaking door, and every nerve in my body thrums to life.
Hayden stands quietly among the flowers, his back turned.
My heart does a somersault, and I linger in the doorway, breathing him in.
The way the golden hour softens every sharp edge of him, like even sunlight knows he belongs right here, with me.
His dark hair is a little tousled, his shoulders relaxed, but what really catches my attention is the way his shadows swirl around him.
They’re faint, a whisper of how I’ve seen them in the past, but still there, wrapping around him as if they too are waiting for something.
I take another step forward, and the soft sound of my boots on the gravel makes him turn.
He looks at me with that familiar intensity, the same look that’s burned a hole in my brain and heart since the day we met. I feel it now…everything we’ve been through, all the things left unspoken, the lost time.
And suddenly, the only thing I can think about is the flowers he gave me, clutched in my hand. I lift the flowers, arching a brow. “Bold choice. Never thought I’d see you voluntarily holding a sunflower again.”
A tiny smirk tugs at his mouth. “I don’t know. I’m starting to think it’s a strong combination.”
“Even the sunflowers?”
“Especially those. I’ve grown to love them.” Hayden’s eyes soften; his head tilts. “They’re bright, sure. But more than that, they’re stubborn. Persistent. Loyal to the light even when the day is cloudy.” His throat moves on a swallow. “I didn’t think I deserved anything like that…until you.”
My breath stutters.
“I’ve grown to love the man who burst into my life, adamant that my flower selection was offensively gloomy, by the way,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck as he takes a step closer. “Turns out, I needed your brand of brightness more than I ever realized.”
Love.
He’s not even hiding it.
“Me?” I point to myself, laughing shakily. “I’m just the florist. I didn’t know I was supposed to rewrite your entire worldview.”
Hayden nods, now smiling. “You did, though,” he says, taking a measured step forward.
“Levi, you’ve shown me what it means to live again.
Truly live. Out of the shadows, out of the rules I chained myself to.
” His voice dips. “You once asked me what my full-bloom moment was…” he murmurs, drawing me in.
“I don’t think I even could have begun to fathom such an answer until I lost you.
God, Levi, it’s always been you. I kept waiting for some big, obvious moment to show me how to really live.
But it happened quietly. Every laugh. Every ridiculous sunflower,” he says, placing a tender hand on the side of my face, tracing the lines of my bottom lip just so.
“You were my full bloom long before I realized I’d been growing toward you. ”
His mouth finds mine and our kiss is slow and gentle, like we’re both remembering just how good this feels. The taste of him, the way his presence fills me. Sunflowers and lilies and shadows…it all blurs.
He pulls away just enough to cradle my face, and looks me in the eye.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers roughly, forehead resting against mine.
“For being afraid. For letting you slip away. I thought I was protecting myself, but I wasn’t.
I was losing the only thing that ever made this mortal life feel like more than exile. I was losing us…”
“Hayden,” I interrupt softly, brushing a thumb along his lips. “I…I get it. But we’re both here now. Let’s not waste any more time apologizing.”
But he shakes his head a little, not pulling away.
“No, Levi. I need to say this.” His voice breaks open, truer than I’ve ever heard it.
“I spent millennia believing my only worth was in what I could do for others. Death. Duty. Order. I thought if I was useful, I’d be needed.
And if I was needed, I would be…less alone. ”
He braces himself, just barely. Shoulders tightening and jaw trembling like he’s preparing for impact. For rejection. Like he fully expects me to walk out if he speaks one word more.
I touch his cheek gently. “I’m not going anywhere.”
He exhales, barely. “But even after you came into my life…even when I started loving you…I couldn’t stop searching for that loophole.” His voice shakes. “And it wasn’t because I wanted to leave you, love.”
My chest pulls tight. “Then why?”
“Because I didn’t think I was allowed to stop.” His eyes flick to mine, desperate and raw. “I didn’t think I was allowed to choose something for myself. Not after an eternity of being the one who stayed behind to keep everything in balance.”
My fingers dip to his waist, grounding him here with me.
“Loving you didn’t erase the fear,” he whispers. “If anything, it magnified it. Because wanting you”—he lifts a hand to cradle my face—“wanting this felt like the most selfish thing I’d ever done.”
I swallow hard. “Hayden—”
“No, it’s okay,” he interrupts. “I didn’t know how to be a man who was allowed to choose something because he wanted it.
Not because it served a purpose. When the Act happened, everyone moved on.
My brothers, the world, time itself. And I…
” His voice folds in on itself. “I thought if I clung to the last rules I had, the last traces of purpose, I wouldn’t disappear. ”
I wrap my arms tighter around his waist, feeling him shudder beneath my touch.
“But then you showed up and you made me feel…alive. Not needed. Not necessary. Just wanted. And that terrified me, Levi. Because if I let myself want you back, that meant letting go of the last thing I thought gave me worth.”
“Baby,” I whisper, pulling him tighter, “you don’t owe the world your purpose to earn a place in it. Not anymore. And definitely not with me.”
My thumb brushes his cheek, tracing the tremor there.
“You kept searching because duty is the only life you’ve ever known. But loving someone? Letting yourself be loved? That’s being human.”
He exhales, eyes brimming with tears I don’t think I could bear to see spill.
“I’m not asking you to be useful, or worthy, or necessary. I just want you. As you are. As you choose to be. Not Hades, or the god the world needed.”
I press my forehead to his, my hand settling over his chest.
“Just Hayden. The man who wants something for himself. The man I love.” I pull him into a kiss, letting anything else I wasn’t able to say pour into the slow, certain press of our mouths.
The ache I’ve been carrying since the moment we fell apart feels like it’s finally loosening, breath by breath, kiss by kiss.
Together.
When I finally pull away, there’s a quiet smile on his face.
“I love you, Levi,” he says, his voice a whisper.
“I love the way you’ve pulled me into the light and shaped my life in ways I never dreamed I’d get to experience.
You showed me how to love the things I never thought I was allowed to.
Even myself.” He kisses me again and again and again, emphasizing the word love over and over with each touch of his lips.
I breathe in deep, trying to swallow the lump he’s cemented in my throat.
“Sunflowers, too,” I manage, smiling against his lips. “Careful, next thing you know you’ll be making gift baskets or smiling at customers. People will talk.”
His smile is full and beautiful and perfect against mine. “Who am I, even?” He laughs, soft and disbelieving, like he can’t recognize the man he’s become.
The sun sinks lower, casting a golden glow across the entire greenhouse. His shadows curl around us in soft, slow arcs, darkness and light folding into the same quiet space as the plants and flowers come alive.
“I love you, Funeral Guy,” I say, nuzzling into the hollow of his neck.
We lean in again, the kiss slow and deep. The kind that builds from your toes. And as I wrap my arms around his waist, I feel Hayden in my arms, breathing soft against my skin. It’s peaceful and thrilling. Calming and chaotic. Every contradiction settling into perfect clarity.
And surrounded by the life of the garden and the blanket of Hayden’s shadows, I know that we’re finally home.
This is everything.
This is where we start.
This is where we grow.