She stiffened. “You were hurt, and you reacted. You were in an unhealthy situation in more ways than one, and you panicked and cleansed everything with fire. Don’t dismiss your emotions and your self-protection as just a fucked-up decision. Don’t reduce something so complex and real and important to nothing.”
That sudden, unexpected stream of words was delivered with Chloe’s typical crisp precision and calm certainty, as if she couldn’t possibly be wrong. Maybe that was why the words didn’t feel wrong. They weren’t what he’d believed for so long, and yet, somehow they sounded just right. Like he was only human and his mistakes could be excused. Like a few fuck-ups didn’t make him a fuck-up.
Like maybe he should forgive himself for everything. And maybe he should trust himself again. He’d really like to trust himself again.
“Have you ever had any therapy?” she asked.
He cleared his throat, tried to focus on the conversation instead of his tangled thoughts. “I just started, actually.”
“Good. Gigi says therapy is the most important medical service there is.”
“Really?” he asked dryly. “So it’s just, Fuck antibiotics, huh?”
“I didn’t say she was right. Or wrong, for that matter.” Chloe wriggled around until their eyes met, her hands rising to his shoulders. “I’m just emphasizing its importance. Now, here are some more things I’d like to emphasize.” She leaned closer until their noses touched. “First of all: that fucker did not make you. She spotted you before anyone else, which was smart, and she sank her fangs into all your loveliness like a leech, which was disgusting. Second: I know you regret leaving everything behind, but that doesn’t mean it was wrong, and that doesn’t mean it can’t be fixed. You can fix it. You will.”
The way she said it, the sentiment came out as strong and natural as the forest around them. She stared at him so hard he was surprised she hadn’t burned through her glasses. She seemed to think she could get the message into his skull through sheer force of will, and her will was pretty impressive.
He cleared his throat, tried to sound unaffected and missed the mark. “Anything else?”
Her expression became gentle, almost tender. “So much else. You always say such lovely things to me, Red. Do you say them to yourself?”
No. No, he didn’t. It had never occurred to him that he should, not until recently.
“I’ll say them,” she murmured. “I’ll tell you how incredibly clever you are, and how you’re funny, and kind, and sweet, and a damned good artist. I don’t understand how things work in creative circles, and I don’t know how much Pippa actually did.” She screwed up her face and spat out the name like it tasted nasty, which he enjoyed way more than he should have. “But no matter what she did or did not do for your career, no one can change the fact that you’re talented. You’re skilled. You’re good.”
He hadn’t been sure about that for a long, long time, but things had changed these last weeks. He’d known they were changing. And now, when she said that out loud and he believed her without question, he realized things really had changed. It was done. Something in him had been knocked loose, back then, but somehow it had clicked back into place without him looking.
He was good.
His grin started in his toes. It was a warmth that rushed through every inch of him, a warmth he wanted to share with her because it was pure and so was she. He couldn’t think of anything to say, of a way to explain what he felt right now—how free he was all of a sudden. So he showed her.
He sank his fingers into her hair, pulled her closer, and kissed her. She came to him so easily, like she knew this was where she belonged and how they should be: the two of them kissing in the cold, their bodies creating more heat between them than the fire just a few feet away. Above them the sky had long since tumbled into star-spotted night, and below them the earth was fresh and real like the way Chloe made him feel. Her cool hands pressed against his flushed cheeks and her lush mouth joined with his, and he loved her so much his heart felt too big for his body.
So this was bone-deep contentment. He’d almost forgotten, for a while.
Chapter Twenty
Around Red, Chloe tended to talk a lot. But there was something about this kiss, this hungry, hopeful, heart-filled kiss, that pushed her gently into silence, like sliding underwater and blocking out all sounds from the outside world. He surrounded her now. He held her tight. Even when their lips parted, when his hands left her so he could put out the fire, when he unzipped the tent flap and sat back on his knees so she could crawl in first, he was still holding her somehow, deep inside in a way that soothed her. So she didn’t speak. She couldn’t. She was drowning in long-coming lust, and soon she’d be under him.
Lord, she couldn’t wait to be under him.
Red crawled in after her, zipped up the tent’s flap, and they were plunged into an odd almost-darkness that seemed otherworldly. She could make out the vague shape of him, those broad shoulders and the fall of his hair unmistakable even as shadowy outlines. And she had the oddest, deliciously heavy feeling that he was looking right at her.
But the feeling faded as he turned away, fiddling with something she couldn’t see. After a moment, she heard a click—and then there was light. Chloe blinked as her eyes adjusted, then gawked as reality filtered in. Somehow, he’d wreathed strings of fairy lights all around the tent, glowing pinpricks that illuminated the small mountain of blankets and cushions.
She stared, awed. “Oh my goodness. This is what you were messing around with earlier?”
“When you were shouting at me to hurry up and feed you? Yeah.” He winked. “Honestly, the things I put up with.”
Her heart was a burning, brilliant thing lodged against her ribs. “Red, why did you do all this?”
“For you,” he said, as though it was obvious. “It’s always for you.”
Camping had been on her list because it seemed gritty and normal and slightly scary and more than a bit of a challenge, but truthfully, she’d barely wanted to do it. Now, in this moment, she realized just how magical Red had made it. Not only by arranging everything, by making her laugh all day, by remembering her limitations so she didn’t have to constantly point them out—but with things like this. Things like the marshmallows. The extra effort he put in to make this a wonderful experience instead of a checked box.
She looked up at him, his hair gleaming like silken flames, his beautiful face still flushed and his lower lip caught between his teeth, and she realized that his sharp eyes studied her with something like trepidation. As if he was nervous. As if he wanted to know that she liked it.
How could he doubt that she loved it? How could he doubt that she loved him, that she wanted him and trusted him and hungered to do everything with him just for the joy of experiencing his reactions?