Chapter 27 #2
“I’m here,” she says, moving her hands to find the back of my neck.
“I can’t—” The words don’t come out as I shake my head against her. “I can’t do this alone.”
She pulls back, taking my face in her hands. My vision blurry from the tears refusing to breach the surface. “Look at me,” she says calmly, warm hands bracketing my face to hold my head upright.
But I close them, not wanting to see the look on her face.
Not wanting to feel embarrassment for this weakness. As much as I needed her, the guilt for bringing her into this is suddenly too much.
“Hey,” she says again, gentle but firm. I open my eyes, taking her in. “There you are,” she murmurs low, like she’s found me in the dark.
I open my mouth, but… “I can’t breathe.”
“Yes, you can,” she says, her thumb stroking my jaw. She moves to circle my wrist with her hand, and she brings my palm to rest on her chest, right over her beating heart. She mirrors the movement with her palm on my chest. “I’m here, babe. I’m right here.”
My breath catches as the word “babe” slips out of her like it’s natural, like she’s said it a hundred times before this moment.
Somehow that small, steady sound cuts through the noise in my head.
The panic is clawing at my chest, still tightening its grip around my lungs, but her voice anchors me.
Her touch keeps me steady. Her beating heart under my hand reminds me I can breathe again.
I drag in a shaky breath and hold it before forcing a long exhale.
“That’s it. You’re here,” she says, leveling her eyes with mine. “You’re safe.”
I’m safe.
I’m here.
She’s here.
After a minute of inhaling and exhaling, I sit back on my knees. I drag a hand through my hair. “I’m sorry to show up like this. I—uh…I had a bad day.”
Her expression softens. “You don’t ever have to apologize for coming to me.”
“I don’t…” I release a long, drawn out exhale. “I don’t like people seeing me like this.”
Her thumb strokes slow over my chest. “Thank you for letting me.”
I stare into her eyes, letting the silence stretch between us. Her hand moves to rest lightly on my forearm. I look down at the contact and then back up to her face, at the understanding already there.
She’s not waiting for me to explain more.
She’s just…here.
It’s more than I could have ever asked.
I lean closer without realizing it and press my forehead to hers. “Fuck. I don’t want to mess this up.”
Her hand slides from my arm to my chest. “You’re not. You can’t mess this up even if you tried.”
“Scottie,” I say barely above a whisper. “I don’t know how to let someone in without…” I pause, shaking my head. “Without everything else coming with it. But I can’t make myself stop wanting you.”
Her eyes don’t leave mine. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Her words land somewhere deep.
I reach for her, hands framing her face. Scottie leans into my touch as her eyes flutter shut for a brief second before opening again. The understanding and patience written all over her face nearly undoes me.
I want to tell her—I need to tell her and let her in.
But the words don’t want to come out.
The wound is too fresh tonight.
“I can’t do it,” I breathe against her lips. “I’m not ready to explain what just happened. But I want you to know I’m trying. I’m fucking trying,” I say, my voice strained as I fight back the emotions.
She presses up, kissing the corner of my lips. “I know you are. You don’t have to tell me anything right now.”
“This is all…it’s all new for me. I don’t do this. I meant what I said, I don’t let people see this part of me.”
“I know.”
“But you, Scottie…” I say, my voice breaking where I didn’t expect it to. “You didn’t just get close. You fucking pushed your way in.”
The words coming out, cracking something open in me, and I don’t fight it. A tear slips free finally, but I don’t wipe it away or hide it.
Not from her.
“I’ve spent my whole life teaching myself how to survive on my own and not relying on anyone else.
And yet somehow, you walked in without asking, without forcing anything, and now you’re everywhere.
” I shake my head, almost laughing at myself.
“I hear your voice in my head before I go to sleep. I hear your laughter echo in the walls of every room I’m in, no matter where it is.
You’re the person I want to run to.” She sucks in a breath, and I hold her there with her face between my hands, angling her to keep her eyes locked on mine.
“I didn’t plan for this, but you’re etched into me now.
It scares the hell out of me because it means whatever happens next, I’m already yours. ”
The words I just said should scare me.
It should make me want to run because I’ve said too much.
It should make her want to run at how fast it feels.
But she’s not leaving.
Instead, her hands come up—gentle and steady as her thumb brushes away the tear. I avert my gaze, letting the humiliation of everything and being a grown man crying in front of her, settle in.
“Look at me,” she says.
I do.
“You scare me, too, Tucker,” she admits, then pauses.
She averts her gaze for just a brief moment, telling me she’s hesitant to say more.
I brace for whatever she’s about to say, and my body tightens to prepare for disappointment.
“I’ve been trying like hell to keep you at a safe distance—told myself not to fall for you,” she says softly.
“Since I got here. Since the beginning. I told myself it was the timing of everything. It hadn’t been that long since you walked out on me.
” I wince at her words, but she continues.
“The show and the mess of everything. I told myself it would be easier if I kept you at arm’s length.
Yet, you kept showing up for me in every moment, from the quiet ones to the hard ones to the ones that mattered.
” She smiles, shaking her head. “Do you remember what you said to me at the bar back in San Francisco?”
I tilt my head to the side in confusion.
“I said a lot of things, Scottie.” I smirk, feeling the tension slip from my body.
She playfully smacks my chest. “Not any of that. But we talked about the meaning of home…” She stops, assessing me to see if I remember.
Truthfully, I don’t. “You said that home is just walls and a roof where you live and a structure with belongings and memories, but then you said it was more than that. You said it’s who’s inside those walls.
It’s where you feel whole.” Her fingers skim my jaw, anchoring me in the present.
“That night, you said it like you believed it. Like you were trying to convince yourself it could still be true.”
My throat works around a lump so sharp it feels like I could choke.
“I thought I was just saying words to help you with your interview.”
Scottie smiles. “You were. But you meant them.”
She shifts, standing and reaching for my hand to lift me off the floor. She tugs me to the couch next to her so we’re not folded into the floor like something broken. Keeping her hands on me, she’s reminding my body it’s allowed to be here.
I look down, my jaw tight. “I keep thinking…” I pause, swallowing and looking down at her hand on my thigh. “I keep thinking I don’t deserve anything. Any—” My voice catches. “Any of this. You.”
She lifts off the couch, straddling my lap, again—grounding me without even trying. “Then I’m going to do everything I can to show you that you do.”
I pull her into me, not gentle this time. I pull her like I’m afraid if I loosen my grip, she’ll vanish. She wraps herself around my shoulders, fitting against me like she always belonged there.
“Stay,” I whisper into the crook of her neck. “Stay with me tonight.”
“Okay.”
My eyes close as my body finally lets go of the fight to stand alone. Somewhere in my chest, the fire still crackles. The grief still breathes. But her arms are real, and the floor beneath my feet is solid, and her voice is a lighthouse in the dark.
When Scottie pulls back, pressing a kiss to my forehead, I realize something that makes my chest burn in an entirely different way.
Home isn’t the place I lost.
It’s the place I’m choosing.
It’s her.