She bites her lip, brow furrowed. “If you’ll have me of course. I don’t blame you if I’m the last person you want to see.”
“Kayla,” I say softly, coming toward her. I stop a foot away, the dogs sniffing her legs. She smiles down at them, absently patting them while she looks back to me. “How are you here?” I ask her.
“I told you. I quit my job,” she says, giving me a hopeful look. “I was ready for me to move on. Move on from the life I was living the last three months. That wasn’t really a life at all. I just…I know I should have told you over the phone or something but I was so afraid, you know. I was so afraid that you’d not believe me or you’d tell me not to come. I was so afraid that it wouldn’t happen. So I quit my job and I bought a plane ticket and I’m just…hoping for the best. Because really, I needed to tell you in person.”
I can barely swallow, my mouth is so dry. “Tell me what?”
She stares at me with wide eyes, like I’ve somehow struck fear in her.
“Tell me what?” I repeat desperately.
She gives me a half-smile. “That I’m still in love with you.”
I cock my head. I couldn’t have heard her right.
She goes, on, licking her lips. “And I know I might have left it too late but…I couldn’t ignore it. I tried, you know. I did. I even went on a date with someone else. I thought that maybe it would help. It lasted a minute, then I got up and left. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t even look at him. Lachlan, you have literally ruined all other men for me. None of them compared to you before. None of them will compare to you after. There’s just you and only you.”
My heart is beating like a frightened bird but I do what I can to keep as much control as possible. “I don’t understand,” I tell her. “You knew how I felt all this time. I kept telling you I loved you…until you stopped saying it back.” I blink hard, remembering the burn. “Why? Don’t you know how that felt, to not hear that from you?”
She looks away, nodding with a wounded expression. “I did. I don’t know. I was so fucked up Lachlan and I still am. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think about my mother and how much I miss her, how much I would give to have her back, even for one single second, just enough to smile at her.” She stares up, her eyes watering. “I tried to move past the grief but I couldn’t. But it didn’t mean I stopped loving you. I just didn’t want to love you anymore. I didn’t want for you to have my heart, all the way over here. How ever would I get it back? It was already so fragile. It was easier to just…shut it all away. But I was wrong. Because it hurt me more to pretend I didn’t care. And in return, you did the same.”
“But it was just pretending,” I tell her, clearing my throat. “I never stopped loving you.”
She stares at me, pained. “Then why are we standing here like this?”
“Because,” I start to say.
But the words die on my lips. She’s on me in a flash. She grabs my face in her hands and pulls my head down toward hers, until my mouth is pressed against her mouth.
I drop the groceries again.
I drop the leashes.
I don’t care. I’m sure the dog’s heads are in the bags, eating the food, and I don’t care.
I give myself to her, to feeling the warmth, the ferocity of her kiss. It brings me back to a beautiful world, one I never thought I’d live in again. I bury my hands in her hair, holding her head, feeling her as our mouths move sweetly against each other in a slow, intoxicating hunger. I can’t believe I’m kissing her again, touching her again, feeling her again.
I can’t believe she still loves me.
I have to pause, have to breathe, have to know.
I pull back, staring deep into those soulful brown eyes of hers.
“You love me?” I whisper.
“I love you,” she whispers back, running her hands down my arms. “My beautiful beast.”
I grin so wide, I think my face might stay that way forever. “You love me.”