Until Arden

“Feeling it, too.” My jaw clenches. “I just wanted to thank you.”

She smiles, but it's almost impossible to tell what she's thinking. “I'm glad you're all back together. He seems pretty fond of you.”

“Yeah. I'm pretty fond of him, too.” There's more that I want to say, I just can't seem to find the words. “Look, when you showed up, I—”

She raises her hand and shakes her head. “I know what you thought, and you had every reason to considering our history.” A look of discomfort flashes across her face, as she fidgets. “We've both carried around a lot of guilt, and I know I aimed a lot of my anger and frustration at you. I was so afraid of being alone, I kept selfishly pulling you back.”

I swallow as I drop my head, my pulse pounding in my ears as Brandy reaches across the desk and squeezes my bicep.

“I'm not that girl anymore, and you're not that boy. I'm making peace with being single and working on myself for a while, and when I came to see you, I wanted to find a way to tell you that, but when I saw that you'd moved on, I figured you didn't need to hear it.”

I grip the handle of my crutches. “The truth is, I still didn't trust myself around you. We've caused each other a lot of pain, but until now, I've never been able to fully move on either.”

“Well, now you have every reason to.” She glances over my shoulder and the corner of her mouth lifts. “I'm glad you found someone who makes you happy. You deserve that.”

By the time I maneuver my broken body out of Talon’s Jeep, Arden is standing next to me, with Holden on her hip. “What am I going to do with you two?”

Her words are a mixture of exhaustion and delight.

Before positioning my crutches under my arms, I wrap my free arm around her. “The same thing I'm going to do with you. Love you.”

We head inside, and I take stock of the place. Bags and boxes of Arden’s belongings are scattered about. Holden’s toys pepper the floor in front of the TV. It feels full, and I’m not sure I’ve ever seen it like this.

Arden’s heading toward the bedroom to put Holden down when I call after her, “Stay?”

Arden spins around and gives me a questioning look. “Neither of us have a car, how am I going to—” Her jaw goes slack, and she blinks. “You mean...?”

“Half of your stuff is already here.” I nod and sit down on the sofa. This isn’t exactly how I intended on asking her to move in, but I can’t sleep until I have at least some idea how she intends to move forward.

Arden’s eyes glisten, and she bites her lip. “One second.”

She disappears into the bedroom and returns a few minutes later. “Okay, but we really need to address this sleeping situation.”

“Okay?”

She sits on the couch next to me, folding her legs up to face me. “Listen, you asked me to move in with a single-word question, so you get a single-word answer. Okay.”

“Well, technically—”

She silences me by pressing a kiss to my lips. I really wish my ribs weren’t on fire right now, because there’s so much more I’d love to do to her.

“We’ll work out the sleeping situation tomorrow.”

She nods skeptically. “And you’re going to sleep on a couch with broken ribs?”

“You have a point, but I don’t think I’m going to be doing much in the way of sleeping anywhere with broken ribs. We’ll make this work tonight and figure out everything else tomorrow.” I tug her closer, needing to feel her warmth against me. “Tonight, let’s just be.”

Despite everything we’ve gone through today, I feel content. Nothing else matters except having Holden home safe and Arden in my arms.