Chapter 14 #2
We stumbled down the hall, shedding clothes as we went. His shirt. My dress, pooling green silk on the hardwood floor. His hands on my waist, my back, everywhere at once.
The bedroom was dark, but I didn't care. I knew him by feel, by the catch of his breath when I kissed the scar on his shoulder, by the groan that escaped when I pressed close.
This time was different.
Not the desperate reunion of that first night, all hunger and urgency and eight years of longing breaking free. This was slower. More deliberate. Like we had all the time in the world and intended to use every second of it.
Garrett lowered me onto the bed. I pulled him down with me. His weight settled over me, solid and warm, and I wrapped around him like I could keep him there forever.
"I love you," I whispered against his mouth.
"I love you." He kissed my jaw. My throat. The hollow between my collarbones.
"I love you." Against my sternum.
"I love you." Lower.
My back arched. My hands found his shoulders, his hair, anything to anchor myself as sensation built.
He took his time. Patient. Thorough. Mapping every inch like he was making sure I was real.
"Garrett—" His name came out broken. "Please—"
When we finally came together, it felt like the most natural thing in the world. Like we'd been waiting eight years for this exact moment and now that it was here, there was no reason to rush.
I moved with him, around him, lost in the rhythm we'd never forgotten.
The wave built slowly. Pleasure coiling tighter and tighter until I couldn't think, couldn't breathe, couldn't do anything but hold on as it crested and broke.
He followed me over, my name on his lips like a prayer.
We lay tangled together afterward. Breathing hard. Hearts pounding in sync.
His hand traced lazy patterns on my hip. My head on his chest, rising and falling with each breath.
"This is from the warehouse fire," I said, tracing the scar on his shoulder. Raised skin, roughly the size of my palm. "Three years ago."
He shifted to look at me. "You read about that?"
"I read everything." I kissed the scar. Soft. Reverent. "I told myself I was just following the news. Professional interest in the FDNY beat."
"And really?"
"Really, I was making sure you were still alive." My voice caught. "Every major fire, every collapse, every firefighter injured, I searched for your name. Held my breath until I knew you weren't on the casualty list."
His arms tightened around me.
"I couldn't be there," I continued. "I didn't think I had the right, after everything. But I could... watch. From a distance. Know that you were still in the world, even if you weren't in mine."
"Sloane—"
"It was pathetic, honestly. Keeping track of someone I'd abandoned." I pressed my palm against his chest. His heartbeat under my hand. "Every article about Engine 295. Every award. Every time someone mentioned your name. I filed it all away. Told myself it didn't mean anything."
"It meant something."
"It meant I never stopped loving you." I looked up at him. "Even when I was too scared to do anything about it."
He didn't let me finish the thought. Just pulled me close, buried his face in my hair, held me like I might disappear if he loosened his grip.
"You can be there now," he said. "If you want."
"I want." I nestled closer. "God, I want."
"Then that's what we'll do." He kissed the top of my head. "You keep track of me up close from now on. Deal?"
"Deal."
No words for a while. Just his heartbeat under my palm and the quiet dark and the feeling of being exactly where I was supposed to be.
Then I propped myself up on my elbow. Looked at him.
Really looked.
Gray-blue eyes soft in the low light. Stubble along his jaw. That serious face relaxed in a way I'd almost forgotten it could be.
He looked younger when he wasn't carrying everything.
He looked like the twenty-six-year-old who'd dropped to one knee on a Brooklyn rooftop and fumbled the words because his hands wouldn't stop shaking.
"I want to give you something," I said.
He raised an eyebrow. "Right now?"
"Right now."
I slipped out of bed. Crossed to the dresser. Picked up the ring box.
When I turned around, Garrett had sat up. The sheet pooled at his waist. His eyes dropped to my hand.
Everything in his face changed.
He knew that box.
I sat on the edge of the bed. Held it out to him.
He took it slowly. Turned it over in his hands. The navy velvet was slightly worn at the corners. He ran his thumb along the hinge but didn't open it.
"You kept it," he said. Barely a whisper.
"I kept it."
He opened the box. The solitaire caught the light, small and clear on its white gold band. He stared at it for a long time.
I watched his throat work.
"You never asked for it back," I said. "So I want to give it back to you now."
Something shuttered in his expression. A flash of fear so raw it made my chest hurt. His hand closed around the box, braced, guarded, like he was preparing for a blow.
"Sloane, if you're—"
"No." I covered his hand with mine. Squeezed. "Garrett, no. That's not what this is."
He stared at me. Not breathing.
"I'm giving it back," I said carefully, "so that you can give it when you think we’re ready." I held his gaze. "But I want you to know that when you ask me again—if you ask me again—the answer is the same one I gave you on that rooftop."
He didn't say anything for a long moment.
Then he closed the box. Set it on the nightstand. Carefully. Like it was the most important thing he'd ever held.
When he looked back at me, his eyes were bright.
"Come here." His voice was rough.
I went.
He pulled me into his lap, cradled my face in both hands, and kissed me like a man who'd just been handed back something he thought he'd lost forever.
I woke to sunlight and the smell of coffee.
My bedroom. My sheets. But something was different. Something was—
Cabinets opening and closing. The clink of a mug.
Garrett.
I lay there, letting the sound settle over me. Someone in my kitchen. Garrett in my kitchen.
I pushed the covers back. Padded down the hall, bare feet on cool hardwood.
He was wearing his jeans from last night. Nothing else. Standing at my counter with a spatula in one hand and a confused expression.
"You found the coffee."
He turned. That smile again. The one that still made everything flip.
"Eventually." He gestured at the cabinet he'd clearly been exploring. "Your organization system is... creative."
"It's not a system. It's intuition."
"It's chaos."
"Creative chaos." I crossed to him, still in his shirt from last night, and he pulled me close automatically. Like it was a habit already. Like we'd been doing this forever. "There's a method to it. You just have to understand the underlying logic."
"The underlying logic seems to be 'wherever Sloane's hand lands when she's not paying attention.'"
"Exactly. Intuitive."
He laughed and kissed my forehead.
"Breakfast is almost ready. I found eggs. And what I think is bread, but might be a science experiment."
"It's bread. Probably."
"Reassuring."
I leaned against the counter and watched him cook. Morning light turning his skin golden, catching the muscles of his back as he moved. He looked comfortable in my kitchen.
Like he belonged there.
This is real. This is actually happening.
I was happy.
The kind of happiness that wasn't complicated by guilt or fear or the constant drumbeat of you don't deserve this.
"What are you thinking about?" Garrett asked.
"Nothing." I sipped my coffee. "Everything. How strange it is that we're here."
"Good strange?"
"The best strange." I set down my mug. Crossed to him. Slid my arms around his waist from behind and pressed my cheek to his shoulder blade. "I keep waiting for something to go wrong."
He turned off the stove. Turned in my arms.
"Me too," he admitted. "Every morning I wake up expecting you to be gone."
"I'm not going anywhere."
"I know." He touched my face. "But the fear doesn't listen to logic. Not yet."
"Then we'll teach it." I rose on my toes, kissed him softly. "Every morning. Every time we wake up and we're both still here. Eventually the fear will get tired of being wrong."
"You think so?"
"I think we've already survived the worst thing that could happen to us." I held his gaze. "We survived losing each other. If we can come back from that, we can handle anything."
Something shifted in his expression. The shadows were still there, would probably always be there. But lighter. Like the sun had found a crack in the clouds.
"Breakfast is getting cold," he said.
"Let it."
I kissed him again. And again. And the eggs did go cold, but neither of us cared.
The past was behind us.
The future was wide open.
And for the first time in years, I wasn't afraid of it.