Her Collateral Bride: A Lesbian Age Gap Romance

didn’t smell this good, and whatever Claire had going on in

the oven smelled like heaven.

“Claire, I…” All her words deserted her. Her mind circled

through all the things she could say. When you told me to

leave, every part of me cried out to stay. I didn’t want us to

end. I thought you’d at least look at me before I left, but you

didn’t. As Snake was driving us away, you turned and went

back inside. I know you didn’t watch from the window where I

couldn’t see you. My God, it hurt. It hurt so badly that I felt

broken for the past month. Ever since I left here.

Claire left the seafood scattering the floor. She walked over

to Haley, eyes blazing. She looked different. She looked…

happy. At peace somehow. Haley marked all the changes

instantly, because she’d memorized every detail about Claire.

Suddenly, she couldn’t see anything past the haze blurring her

eyes. It burned, those tears. It burned as badly as her heart.

“My grandma finally got tired of me moping around the

house, doing nothing at all, and told me to get my buns here

and tell you how I felt. She wanted me to say that I’d fight for

you, because I will. That I miss you, because I do. That yes,

my dad is still Robert Watt, and the past is still the past, but

what I want for the future is so much bigger than that. Maybe

I’m crazy because I know we didn’t have that much time

together, but I just miss you so much. With this all-consuming,

unfathomable, bottomless kind of ache.”

Claire reached out and swept a strand of Haley’s hair back.

She let her touch linger, soft and gentle, before she used the

pad of her thumb to swipe away the tears from Haley’s cheek.

She made a sound of regret that made Haley’s words keep

tumbling out like an out-of-control waterfall.