Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
Boone
“You okay?” she asks quietly, minutes after running my day with her charity festival. Seconds after ruining my heart with her stubborn honesty when I confronted her about it.
I shrug. “Depends.”
“On?”
“Whether you want honesty or jokes.”
She sets the brush down. “Honesty.”
That lands heavier than I expect. “I’m not great at feelings.”
“I know,” she says. “But you’re trying.”
I drop down onto the floor, settling her beside me, legs stretched out, our backs against the couch. The stupid thing digs into my spine immediately.
“This couch is an act of violence,” I mutter.
She laughs, bright and unguarded. “It’s fucking awful.”
We both burst into easy laughter. I squeeze her knee, pulling her a little closer. Our laughter dies and silence stretches between us, not uncomfortable but charged, like the air before a storm. I can feel everything I’m not saying pressing against my ribs, clawing for the exit.
I clear my throat. “About earlier.”
Her smile fades, just a notch. “Yeah?”
“I shouldn’t have gone off like that.”
She doesn’t look at me. “You were scared.”
“I was angry.”
“At yourself.”
That hits closer to the bone than I like.
I stare at my hands. They’re still faintly stained with paint from earlier, reds and blacks caught in the lines of my skin like a confession I didn’t ask for.
“I don’t do well with… futures,” I say.
She turns toward me fully now. “I noticed.”
“I’ve spent a long time convincing myself I don’t get one,” I continue. “At least not the kind that includes… people.”
Her voice softens. “And now?”
“And now you’re here,” I say. “And you’re loud and bright and impossible to ignore, and somehow you make it feel like maybe I don’t have to disappear to survive.”
She swallows. I see it. See the way the words land and settle.
“I don’t want to be something you lose,” she says.
“I don’t want to lose you,” I answer immediately.
The honesty surprises both of us.
Her breath catches. “Boone…”
I turn to face her, really face her. “I want you,” I say, low and steady. “Completely. But only if you’re ready. Only if this is something you choose, not something I corner you into because I’m tired of being alone.”
She searches my face like she’s looking for the catch.
“You’re not cornering me,” she says slowly. “You’re standing still.”
“Yeah,” I admit. “That’s new.”
She reaches out, fingers brushing my wrist. Electricity arcs up my arm, settles heavy in my chest.
“I’m scared,” she says.
“So am I.”
She smiles, small but real. “Good.”
I huff a laugh. “You’re twisted.”
“You like it.”
I don’t argue.
She shifts closer, her shoulder pressing into my arm. I wrap my arm around her without thinking, pulling her into my side. She fits there like she’s always known the shape of me.
Her head tips back against my shoulder. “You know what I thought when I first saw you?”
“Something unflattering, I’m sure.”
“That you looked like a man who’d stopped expecting good things.”
I tighten my arm. “And now?”
“Now I think you’re a man who forgot he’s allowed to want them.”
The room feels smaller. Or maybe it’s just the way she looks at me, like she’s daring me to believe her.
I lift my hand, hesitate a beat, then tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. My knuckles brush her cheek. She inhales sharply.
“Firefly,” I murmur.
“Yes.”
“If I kiss you,” I say, voice rough, “I don’t know if I’ll be able to stop.”
She turns her face toward mine, lips inches away. “Then don’t.”
The word hangs there, tempting and terrifying.
I shake my head once. “Not yet.”
Her brows knit. “Why?”
“Because I want this to mean something,” I say. “And because if I cross that line tonight, I’ll want everything. And I need to know you won’t wake up tomorrow wishing you hadn’t.”
She studies me, really studies me, like she’s deciding whether to call my bluff or thank me for it.
Then she surprises me by leaning in and pressing her forehead to mine.
“I won’t,” she whispers.
My breath stutters. “You can’t promise that.”
“No,” she agrees. “But I can promise I’m not running.”
That’s enough. More than enough.
I pull her fully into my arms, and she goes willingly, folding into me, legs tangling with mine, her cheek against my chest. My heart is loud in my ears, a steady, relentless thing that refuses to be ignored.
We sit there like that, breathing each other in, the world narrowed to warmth and weight and the sound of her sighing when my thumb traces slow circles on her back.
“You know,” she says after a while, voice muffled, “for a grumpy hermit, you’re surprisingly gentle.”
I smirk into her hair. “Careful. I’ve got a reputation.”
“Uh-huh.”
I feel her smile against my shirt. Feel the way she relaxes, how her body trusts mine without question. It’s humbling. Terrifying. Everything.
We shift eventually, gravity and discomfort forcing us up onto the couch. It’s just as awful as before, springs poking in all the wrong places, but she curls into me anyway, knees tucked up, head on my shoulder.
“This thing is a crime,” I mutter.
She laughs. “You stayed.”
I slide an arm around her waist. “Don’t push your luck.”
She tilts her head to look at me. “You okay?”
I meet her gaze. “I think I could be.”
Her fingers trace the edge of my collarbone, light and exploratory. “You don’t have to figure it all out tonight.”
“I know.”
“But you don’t have to do it alone either.”
I close my eyes briefly, absorbing that. “You’re dangerous.”
“Occupational hazard,” she says lightly.
The music fades into silence. Outside, wind brushes the windows. Inside, everything feels suspended, like we’re standing on the edge of something vast and unnamed.
She yawns, small and unguarded.
“You tired?” I ask.
“Mm,” she hums. “But I don’t want you to go.”
I press a kiss to the top of her head, gentle, reverent. “Then I won’t.”
She relaxes fully at that, her body heavy and trusting against mine. My chest tightens with something that feels dangerously like hope.
I stare out the window at the dark, at the faint reflection of us tangled together on that ridiculous couch, and realize with startling clarity that I don’t feel like a loner tonight.
I feel like a man standing at the beginning of something.
Almost everything.