9. Bree
brEE
He doesn't flinch. He doesn't pull away.
He drops the wrench—Bryson Holloway, the man who treats tools like sacred objects, drops a wrench on the concrete floor—and his hands come up to my face and he kisses me back.
Not fast, not desperate, not the way he kissed me in the kitchen that first night.
Slow. Deliberate. The kind of kiss that says I'm not hiding this anymore, and I don't care who's watching.
The station erupts. Ty lets out a whoop so loud it echoes off the bay ceiling.
Tanner grins from the doorway with Bridget tucked under his arm, both of them holding muffins and looking smug.
Someone—I think it's Nolan—slow claps, which is the most emotion I've ever seen from him.
Ty pulls out his phone and snaps a photo that I know is going to end up in a group chat I'll never be allowed to see.
Bryson pulls back. He looks at me. The corner of his mouth does the thing—the almost-smile, the seismic event—and this time it goes further.
This time it's a real smile. Full, unguarded, transformative.
It changes his entire face from intimidating to devastating, and the whole station goes quiet for a second because none of them have ever seen it.
"You're staring," I whisper.
"I'm always staring," he says. "You just couldn't tell before."
Bridget brings celebratory muffins from Sweet on Main and we all crowd around the station table and it's loud and warm and chaotic in the way that families are, and Bryson sits next to me with his hand on my knee under the table, thumb moving in slow circles, not talking, not needing to, just present and solid and there.