“When everything happened,” I said.
“I came by your house. To try and, you know, find you,” she said.
“Uh huh,” I said.
“And I ran up onto the porch and just started knocking on your door. But, you didn’t answer, so I started banging. I banged over and over, and I just wanted you to open up. I just wanted you to open the door, so I could beg and cry for your forgiveness. I wanted you to open up so I could drag you out here and take you back home with me so I could show you how much you meant to me after the weekend we spent together. And when you didn’t answer I just… lost all hope. I’m so sorry, Christian, please. I never meant for all this to get so out of hand. That weekend we spent together in New York was the most incredible thing I’ve ever experienced. Ever.”
I strode to her and wrapped my arms around her while I tried to hold back tears of my own. I felt her arms fling around my neck while she buried her tear-streaked face into the crook of my neck. Her chest hiccupped against mine with sobs of sorrow and guilt, but the only thing I could think about was her.
How much she was hurting and how hard she was shaking against my body.
“I’m so sorry,” I said, whispering. “Stella, I’m so, so sorry.”
“I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”
“I know,” I said. “I know.”
I ran my fingers through her hair while she continued to cry. I sighed with relief at the feeling of her soft hair against my skin again. It felt so wonderful to have her in my arms, to have her breath so warm against my skin. I could feel her tears dripping onto my clothes, and I hoped that if I held her tight enough, they would stop.
“I am so sorry I walked away, Stella. I was hurt and so angry. I thought that maybe the weekend we spent in New York was part of some grand plan. And the mere fact I could’ve ever thought that in the first place makes me sick to my stomach. Please forgive me, Stella.”
She pulled back from me and looked up into my eyes while her hands wandered to mine. I moved my gaze down to survey them, watching while her fingers intertwined. I took her hands within mine and slowly danced my skin on top of them as I heard her let out the slightest of sighs.
How I’d missed her touch.
“Your reaction was valid, Christian. It was me who put all this shit in motion. That day at the hospital, when I watched my father pass. It broke my heart.”
I ran my thumbs along her fingers while she gathered her words. It gave me time to gather the ones I wanted to tell her. I understood now why I had done all of this at her house. Why I had cooked this dinner and poured this wine and used her spare key to get into her home in the first place.
Because I had one important thing I wanted to tell her.
I raised my gaze up before I slid my arms around her waist. The smells of the kitchen wafted around our heads, but when she raised those beautiful green eyes to mine none of that mattered. Her nose was snotty, and her eyes were red, but the only thing I could feel was the warmth of her body against mine.
I dipped my lips slowly down to hers, stopping just shy of them before I fluttered my eyes open. I studied her, with her lips slightly parted and her eyes closed and ready, and I smiled before she closed the gap between the two of us.
Our lips moved in tandem with each other as I pulled her closer into my body. I dipped her back, trying to draw as much of her into me as I could. Then, right before I swiped my tongue across her lips, the words tumbled from my tongue as effortlessly as they had in my dreams.
“I love you, Stella.”
I felt her pull back and my eyes fluttered open. Her wide-eyed stare was bouncing all along my face, no doubt searching for any sign that she’d heard me right. I could tell she was confused and taken aback, but there was no going back from what I’d said. I meant every single word of it, and whatever that meant for us is what I would have to live with.
“You love me?” she asked.
“You know when I knew it? Really knew it?” I asked.
“When?”
“The lunch we spent on the boat going to the Statue of Liberty. I opened up to you about emotions I hadn’t even talked to my best friend about. Things I didn’t think I’d ever tell anyone after I’d read the letter Mom left me. We got off the boat, and you kissed me anyway, then we went back and held one another. That was the moment I knew.”
“That you loved me,” she said.
“Yes.”
I could see the wheels turning in her mind. She was digesting what I’d said. Breaking it down into bite-sized pieces her overstimulated body could handle. She was logging it away, absorbing everything about me with her eyes so she would never forget this one moment.
Then, she smiled. The biggest smile I’d ever seen her have. It closed her eyes before she rose up on her toes, and the way her arms flung around me and pulled me close told me she was happy.
What I didn’t expect, however, was what came next.