Chapter Twenty Two #2
He exhales, rough and uneven, and for the first time since he walked through my door, some of that tension finally leaves him.
I look up at him. “I was scared and pissed and losing my fucking mind, but I’m not mad about that. Not even a little.”
His eyes stay on mine.
“Okay?”
He nods once.
“Okay.”
“The chase was never the fucking point.”
I go still.
His thumbs brush beneath my eyes while he stares straight into me.
“Yeah, chasing your stubborn ass was fun, but you know what gets me worse now? Waking up next to you. Watching you make coffee in my shirt. Listening to you argue with your cat like he understands every word. You controlling the music all the time, stealing my food, reaching for my hand without even thinking about it.” His mouth pulls slightly, but there’s nothing cocky about it.
“I wanted you before I had you, Cece. But I’m fucking gone for you now that I actually have you. ”
My throat tightens painfully.
“You don’t get to fix this by saying pretty shit.”
“I’m not trying to fix it with words.” His forehead almost touches mine. “I’m trying to make sure you understand that tonight wasn’t me leaving.”
I hold his stare, anger still burning under everything else.
“Do you know how fucking scared I was?”
That wipes the last trace of softness from his mouth.
“I thought something happened to you, and then I started thinking maybe nothing happened, which was somehow worse because then it meant you just didn’t care.”
His eyes close briefly.
“I care so fucking much it scares the shit out of me.”
My breath catches.
I look down at his hands because suddenly looking at his face feels dangerous, and that’s when I really notice how bad they are.
“Jesus Christ, Revel.”
I catch his wrist and turn his hand carefully beneath the light. His knuckles are split open, swollen and already bruising purple beneath the skin.
“You destroyed your fucking hands.”
“Nah, it’s just cosmetic, trust me. They still work.” His mouth curves despite the bruise darkening along his cheek. “Want me to prove it to you?”
“You are absolutely shameless, pendejo.” I slap his chest with my free hand.
A tiny smile pulls at his mouth.
I narrow my eyes. “Why are you smiling?”
“Because you’re pissed and getting violent.” His brows bounce once, playful as ever. “Kinda missed it.”
I smack his chest again.
“Cabrón.”
He laughs, and something inside me gives way at the sound because he’s here. Soaked, bruised, bleeding, completely fucking infuriating, but here.
I spent the entire night convincing myself he didn’t come because I wasn’t worth coming back to, and apparently, my mouth decides I haven’t humiliated myself enough yet.
“This is why I didn’t want to fall in love with you.”
The room goes still.
Puta madre.
My entire body locks up while Revel’s expression changes slowly, his eyes sharpening on mine as something dangerously close to pure fucking happiness spreads across his battered face.
I immediately try to step back.
His hand catches my waist.
“You’re in love with me?”
“I said I didn’t want to be.”
His grin grows.
“That ain’t the same thing, Mama.”
I point a finger at him. “If you make this unbearable, I swear to God—”
He kisses me before I can finish.
Hard and desperate, nothing like the smug, cocky kisses he usually gives me. My hands fist in his soaked shirt almost immediately, and I kiss him back because, apparently, pride packed its shit and left sometime around hour three of crying at Mami’s house.
When he finally pulls away, his forehead drops against mine.
“Good.”
I blink at him. “Good?”
“Yeah.” His hands settle carefully around my waist. “Because I’m fucking in love with you too.”
Everything inside me stops.
There’s no grin now. No joke waiting behind his teeth, no smug little comment ready to ruin the moment. Just Revel looking at me like saying it out loud scares him almost as much as hearing it scared me.
“So fucking much, Cece.”
My eyes burn all over again.
“Oh, fuck you.”
A tired laugh slips out of him. “What?”
“You cannot make me cry for five fucking hours and then drop an I love you on me at midnight looking like you got in a bar fight.”
“Technically, it was a supermarket fight.”
“Not helping.”
“Sorry.”
I let out a breath and cup his bruised cheek carefully, keeping my thumb away from the worst of it. “I’m still really fucking mad at you.”
“I know.”
“She made enough food to feed half of fucking Florida.”
Revel’s mouth twitches. “Tell me she sent some home with you. I’ll eat every bit of it and let her interrogate me while I do.”
“Oh, she’s absolutely going to interrogate you.”
“I deserve it.”
“And I blocked you.”
That gets him. His brows lift, then his mouth pulls to one side. “Yeah. That one fucking hurt.”
“Good.”
“So fucking mean.”
“Thought you liked that.”
“Oh, I do.” His grin turns filthy again, like the bruises and busted knuckles apparently did nothing to damage his ability to be a complete menace. “Been half hard since you slapped my chest the first time.”
I just stare at him.
“Eres un maldito cabrón, descarado de mierda. Te juro que esa boca tuya un día va a conseguir que te maten.”
His grin, somehow, gets wider.
I jab a finger into his chest. “And wipe that stupid fucking look off your face, porque no era un cumplido.”
“No clue what you just said, but fuck Mama, it sounded hot.”
“Dios mío, cállate.” I shake my head at him. “You are literally standing in my house looking like somebody beat the shit out of you and you’re still flirting.”
“Technically, I did most of the beating.”
“Not helping, Papi.”
“That one sounded affectionate.”
I narrow my eyes. “Keep talking and I’ll make the other side of your face match.”
That finally pulls a real laugh out of him, rough and tired and so fucking familiar that something in my chest loosens before I can stop it.
I hate how badly I needed to hear that sound.
For another second I just look at him, soaked through, bruised, exhausted, still somehow standing here trying to make me laugh after the night we’ve both had, and then I give up fighting the pull toward him.
I step forward and wrap my arms around his middle.
Revel goes completely still.
Only for a second.
Then his arms come around me so carefully it almost wrecks me all over again, one settling around my waist while the other slides up my back like he’s afraid squeezing too hard might make me disappear.
I press my face into his chest and breathe him in beneath the rain and damp cotton. The tears come quietly this time.
Not the angry, humiliating crying from earlier.
Just everything finally draining out of me at once.
Fear. Anger. Relief.
Love, apparently.
Qué horror.
His mouth presses against the top of my head.
“I’m sorry, Mama.”
My fingers tighten in the back of his wet shirt. “I know.”
“I never meant to make you think I left.”
That one gets me, and my eyes close as his arms tighten around me.
“I know.”
“I mean it.” His voice drops against my hair. “I’m not going anywhere. Not ever.”
I lean back just enough to look up at him. “Careful, Papi. That sounds suspiciously like another promise.”
“It is.”
My stomach does the stupid little flip it always does when he looks at me like that.
“Then don’t make it unless you can keep it.”
Every trace of teasing disappears from his face. He cups my jaw carefully, thumb brushing beneath my cheekbone while his eyes stay locked on mine.
“This one I can keep.”
And for once, I don’t immediately start picking apart all the ways it could go wrong.
I just believe him.
That might be the scariest part.
I lean up and kiss him again, slower this time, until a deeply offended meow cuts through the room.
We both look toward the hallway.
Guacamole is sitting there staring at Revel like he personally orchestrated every shitty part of tonight.
Revel sighs. “Your son still fucking hates me.”
“Yeah, well, he’s had to listen to me cry for hours because of your dumb ass.”
“Well, shit.” He looks back at me. “And here I thought we were having a moment.”
“We were. He ruined it.”
Guac meows again.
Revel points at him. “See? Judgmental little bastard.”
A real laugh finally slips out of me, and when I look back, Revel is wearing that stupid soft expression again.
I take his least-destroyed hand carefully and start pulling him toward the kitchen.
“Come on.”
“Where we going?”
“I’m cleaning your hands before you bleed all over my floor.”
His grin comes back instantly. “You gonna kiss them better too?”
I stop and slowly look over my shoulder at him.
“Do you want me to unblock you just so I can block you again?”
He laughs as he follows me into the kitchen. “Missed you too, Mama.”
“Cállate, cabrón.”