Nick's POV

Two days after Watkins Glen, I could finally stand up without looking like I'd lost a fight with invisible furniture.

That was progress.

Not dramatic movie-montage progress. Not me sprinting up stairs to prove a point while Avery glared holes through my skull and threatened to call Drew just to humble me. Just normal progress.

I could walk without my back threatening legal action. My calf had stopped jumping like it had personal grievances. The heating pad had gone from life support to backup plan. I hadn't taken another muscle relaxer since the day before, partly because I didn't need one and partly because I had learned very quickly that being loopy around Avery was hazardous to every emotional boundary I had left.

Drew had called that morning and asked for the truth.

I told him I was better. He made me define better.

I said, "Medium functional."

He said, "That is the first honest thing you've said to a medical professional in your entire life."

So. Progress and slander.

By late afternoon, the house had gone quiet in that soft way it did when the day started tipping toward evening. A quiet that made every room feel too big and every unsaid thing feel louder.

No Logan barging in with Bojangles and emotional damage. No Drew calling to ask if I was being stupid. No crew guys texting. No shop noise. No race footage playing in the background loud enough to drown out my own head.
No excuse left.

Avery was in my kitchen. That still did something to me every time I saw it. It hit me in places I didn't have names for. Not sharp exactly. Or painful. Worse than that. Tender. Like pressing on a bruise you had forgotten was there, only to realize it had never really healed.

Logan had managed to track down her rogue suitcase, so tragically, she was no longer wearing my clothes. Still, I couldn't take my eyes off her.

She stood at the island in jeans and one of those fitted little tops that looked simple until you remembered you were a man with eyes and a pulse and a very fragile grip on self-control. Her hair was down, loose around her back, and the late sun coming through the windows caught the various shades of brown in it just enough to make her look unreal.

Like memory. Like want. Like every version of her I had tried and failed to stop missing.

I was at the sink pretending to rinse out my coffee mug like it required a deep level of concentration.

I knew the second I looked at her too long, I was going to say something that changed the shape of the room again.

Avery didn't look up from where she was wiping down the counter. "You're staring."

I glanced down at the mug in my hand. "I'm doing dishes."

"You have been rinsing the same cup for a full minute."

"Coffee stains," I muttered.

"Nick."

"What?" I looked at the mug like it had betrayed me. "Stubborn coffee stains."

Her mouth twitched, but the almost-smile didn't quite make it all the way across her face.

That was the thing about the last two days. The tension hadn't gone away. If anything, it had gone deeper. Less frantic. Less tangled up in pain and muscle relaxers and embarrassment. Sharper now. Cleaner. Like both of us knew there was a conversation sitting in the middle of the house and we were running out of reasons to keep tiptoeing around it.

I shut the faucet off. The sudden silence felt too loud.

I set the mug on the drying mat, braced both hands on the edge of the sink for half a second, and told myself to stop being a coward.

When I turned around, Avery was already looking at me. No smile now. Just those wide hazel eyes. Steady. Careful. Brave enough to make me nervous.

I leaned back against the counter, more for something to do with my body than because I needed support. "You wanna sit?"

Her throat moved. Then she nodded.

We ended up in the living room, the two of us on opposite ends of the couch at first like that distance was going to save either one of us. The house was warm around us. The fireplace stone caught the evening light. Somewhere outside, a bird was losing its entire mind in the trees, and the porch swing moved a little in the breeze.
Avery looked around the room once before she looked at me again. That was when I knew where this was going.

The house. Of course it was the house.

I rubbed a hand over my jaw. "You can ask."

Her fingers tightened together in her lap. "I don't really know how."

I laughed once, quiet and rough. "Yeah. Same."

That almost made her smile..

Then she looked toward the kitchen. Toward the hallway. Toward the windows. Toward the whole damn house like maybe the walls might answer for me if I couldn't.

"This place," she said softly.

There it was.

I looked down at my hands. "Yeah."

"It feels like..." She stopped, pressing her lips together. When she spoke again, her voice was softer. "It feels like a memory I walked into by accident."

My chest tightened so hard it almost felt like another spasm.

I had prepared for a lot of things. Questions. Confusion. Maybe even anger. I had not prepared for that. I had not prepared for her to name it so perfectly.

"I didn't mean for it to hit you like that," I said.

Avery nodded slowly. "I know you didn't."

"No, I really mean that, Aves." I looked up at her then because I needed her to believe me. "I didn't bring you here with some big reveal in mind. I wasn't sitting around thinking, wait until she sees the porch, or the windows, or the..." I stopped and shook my head. "Hell, I barely got here without my back folding in half."

That pulled the smallest breath of laughter out of her. It vanished almost immediately.

"I know you didn't plan it," she said.

I looked at her. She was sitting with her hands clasped in her lap, shoulders straight, chin lifted like she was trying to hold herself together through the conversation instead of relax into it.
It made me want to move closer. Instead, I stayed where I was.

"You still should've heard it from me," I said. "Before getting blindsided because I was not functioning on all cylinders."

Her eyes lifted to mine.

I looked around the room because looking at her while admitting any of this felt like standing too close to the edge of a cliff. One wrong move and I was going over.

"I didn't build it for show," I said. "That sounds stupid, but I mean it. It wasn't some big climatic thing in my head. At first, it was just... stuff I liked. Stuff that felt right."

"The porch," she said quietly.

I nodded. "Yeah."

"The swing."

"Yeah."

Her eyes flicked toward the kitchen. "The windows."

I swallowed. There was no point pretending anymore.

"The windows," I admitted.

Avery looked down, and I saw the emotion move across her face before she smoothed it back. She had always been good at that. Too good. At feeling something all the way down and then folding it back up before anyone could touch it.

"I kept telling myself maybe I was imagining it," she said.

"You weren't."

It came out too fast. Too rough. Too desperate.

Her gaze snapped back to mine.

I breathed out slowly and forced myself not to look away. "You weren't imagining it."

Her lips parted, but no sound came out.

"I didn't set out to build some shrine to you," I said, hating how inadequate the words felt. "Or to us. That's not what this was."

Her mouth softened just a little. "Then what was it?"

I looked toward the porch through the window. The swing. The wraparound line of the roof. All the things I had chosen without ever being able to explain them to anybody in a way that didn't make me sound half haunted.

"It was the closest thing I knew to home," I said.

The room went still. Avery went still.

I kept going because if I stopped, I probably wouldn't start again.

"I had enough money by then to build something nice. Bigger. Flashier. Whatever. Every builder wanted to show me plans with glass walls and sharp angles and things that looked expensive as hell but felt like nobody was ever supposed to breathe in them." I rubbed my palms over my knees. "Every time I looked at one, it just felt empty."

She didn't interrupt.

"So I kept going back to this," I continued. "Wood. Stone. A porch. Morning light in the kitchen. Space that felt lived in instead of shown off." My voice dropped. "And yeah, eventually I had to admit where some of that came from."

"Us," she whispered. It wasn't a question.

I nodded once. Her eyes shone a little at that, and seeing it almost undid me.

"I found your sketch when I was packing up my old place," I said.

Avery blinked. "That one from high school?"

"Yeah." A sad laugh moved through me. "Folded in a box with some old race passes and wristbands and other junk I should've thrown out years before."

"But you didn't."

"No."

Her voice softened. "Why?"

I gave a small, humorless laugh. "Because it was yours."

The silence after that wasn't awkward. It was worse. It was full of everything still unsaid.

Avery looked down at her hands, her thumbs rubbing over each other like she needed somewhere to put the feeling.

Then she said, "I almost called you."

My head came up. "What?"

Her eyes stayed on her hands at first. "A lot. After we broke up., wven though we said we'd give eqch other space. While I was in Boston. Later too."

Something in my chest pulled so hard it made breathing difficult.

"You did?" I asked.

She nodded.

"When?"

Avery gave a tiny shrug that looked anything but casual. "Finals. Race weekends. Your birthday. Random Tuesdays when something stupid happened and you were still the first person I wanted to tell."

I couldn't move. I couldn't even blink. For years I had told myself there was a clean line between us. A decision. A goodbye. A closed door. Now she was telling me she had stood on the other side of that door with her hand on the knob. And I hadn't known.

"Why didn't you?" I asked.

The question came out quieter than I meant it to.

Avery laughed, but there was no humor in it. "Instagram."

I closed my eyes. Of course. Of course it would be the thing I had used to prove I was fine that convinced her I was gone. When I opened my eyes, she was watching me.

"I'd check on you," she said. "Or at least I told myself I was checking on you. Qualifying. Race photos. Whatever you'd posted. And there was always some girl in the frame."

Shame moved through me, hot and old.

"Aves..."

"No." She shook her head quickly. "I'm not saying it to punish you."

"It still sucks."

"Yeah," she whispered. "It did."

That honesty was so her it hurt.

I rubbed my palms against my sweatpants, suddenly unable to get comfortable in my own skin.

"I saw them," she said. "At bars. At the shop. Victory lane. Girls in your merch. Girls touching your arm, leaning in, smiling like they belonged there."

I looked away. I wanted to escape it. I couldn't. I couldn't stand that I had done that to her, and I couldn't lie about it either.

"I thought it meant you'd moved on," she finished quietly.

I looked back at her then. The hurt in her face wasn't dramatic. That made it worse. It had the settled weight of something she had carried for a long time. Too long.

"I didn't," I said.

Her mouth tightened. "I know that now."

"No." I leaned forward, elbows on my knees. "I mean I really didn't."

"Nick, you dated."

"Yeah."

"You posted."

"Yeah."

"I did too," she said, her voice shaking just slightly. "Not the same way. But I did."

"I know you did."

"Do you?" she asked.

I gave a short, broken laugh. "There's that question."

"You need it."

She was right. God help me, she was right.
I looked down at the floor between us. "I was a mess, Aves."

Her expression softened, but she didn't rush to make it easier for me. She just let me say it.

"Not in some noble, tragic movie hero way," I said. "Just messy. Young. Pissed off. Hurt. Stupid enough to think if I looked fine hard enough, maybe eventually I would be."

Avery's eyes stayed on mine.

"Some of those pictures were nothing," I admitted. "Some weren't. I'm not gonna sit here and rewrite it into something prettier because that wouldn't be fair to you."

She swallowed hard.

"But none of them were you."

That one landed. I saw it in the way her breath caught. In the way her fingers curled against her palm. In the way she looked at me like she wanted to believe me and hated that part of her already did.

And because the truth was already wrecking the room, I kept going.

"I liked being wanted when I felt left," I said.

Avery went very still.

I hated the sound of that sentence once it was out there. Hated how small it made me feel. Hated how honest it was.

Her voice, when it came, was barely above a whisper.

"You felt left?"

I looked at her. "Yeah."

The word hung between us. She looked down fast, like that hurt had found a place she hadn't protected in time.

"I didn't leave because I stopped wanting you," she said.

"I know that." My throat tightened. "We made that decision together. Doesn't mean I didn't feel it."

"Nick," she whispered.

"I did." I shook my head, staring at my hands. "I think some part of me knew it then too. That you weren't leaving me. That we were trying to be mature. Trying to be good to each other." I laughed once, bitter and quiet. "But knowing it in my head and feeling it..." I looked up. "Different things."

Avery nodded slowly. Something in her face told me she understood that better than either of us wanted her to.

"I felt replaced," she said.

There it was. The other side of it. Left. Replaced. Same goodbye. Different wound.

I stared at her for a second, then looked away because the shame and grief of nineteen-year-old me had suddenly crawled back into the room like it had never left.

"I hate that," I said quietly.

"I know you do."

"I hate that I made you feel like that."

"I know that too."

I laughed once and dragged a hand over my face. "You keep saying that like you know everything."

Avery's mouth softened. "Not everything. Just enough."

That almost killed me.

We were quiet for a minute after that. The quiet wasn't empty. It was crowded with every version of us that had been too proud, too hurt, too young, too scared.

Then she said, "Logan told me about the tattoo."

My head lifted slowly. I had figured that out the second she looked at my ribs the day before like she was trying not to stare and failing. But hearing it out loud still hit.

"What'd he say?" I asked.

"That you got it after we broke up." Her voice was gentle now. Careful. "That you were a mess. That you didn't know where else to put it."

I looked down at the hem of my T-shirt. The truth of that pressed at my ribs even through the fabric.

"He wasn't wrong."

Avery's eyes moved over my face. "Can I ask you something?"

"Yeah."

"Did you ever think I'd see it?"

I thought about that for exactly half a second.
"No."

She looked surprised.

"Not because I didn't want you to," I said. "Because I didn't think I'd ever get the chance."

That hit hard. I could tell by the way her face changed. Everything tonight was hitting too hard.
I stood before I could think better of it. My back gave a quiet warning, but I ignored it carefully, which was absolutely different from being reckless, despite what Avery would say.

I hooked a hand under the hem of my shirt.
Avery's eyes widened just a little. I looked at her once, giving her the chance to stop me.

She didn't. So I pulled the shirt over my head. The room went quiet in a different way then.
The meteor shower curved along my ribs, etched into skin and muscle and years of pretending I didn't still belong to a girl who had once looked up at the sky beside me and made me feel infinite.

Avery's breath caught. I heard it. Felt it.

She got to her feet slowly and stepped closer, each movement deliberate, like she knew one wrong motion might make me rethink the whole thing.

Her fingers hovered near my side. "Can I?"

I nodded.

The second she touched the tattoo, every thought in my head went silent.

Her fingertips traced the stars first. Then the falling light.

I stood there and let her touch a part of me I had hidden from everyone who might have understood what it meant.

"That's us," she whispered.

My chest tightened. "Yeah."

Avery's face did something painful and soft and beautiful all at once. She looked back down at the tattoo like she needed another second to believe it.

"I thought maybe I was imagining it," she said, her voice trembling.

"You weren't."

She laughed a little, watery and wrecked. "We really made a habit of carrying the same secret like idiots, didn't we?"

I smiled despite the ache in my chest.

"Apparently."

She traced the line of stars again, gentler this time. Then her hand dropped away. She stepped back and looked at me.

"I have something to show you."

My whole body went still. Something about the way she said it made the air change.

Avery turned around before I could ask. Then she lifted the back of her shirt just enough to show the small of her back.

My breath caught.

When she lowered the waistband of her jeans a fraction, the world narrowed down to the tattoo there.

The same sky.

Not identical. Hers was finer. Smaller. Lower. Tucked along the left side of her lower back like a secret she had carved into herself and carried alone.

But it was the same meteor shower. The same night. The same soft curve of stars and falling light.

My hand went numb at my side.

"You weren't the only one who carried that sky," she said quietly.

I forgot how to breathe. Actually forgot.

For one second, there was no living room. No house. No porch swing outside. No ten years between then and now.

Just Avery standing in front of me with our sky on her skin.

All this time. All this damn time.

"Aves," I said, but it came out broken.

She let the shirt fall and turned back around. I was still standing there like I had been hit in the chest with something heavy and cruel.

"You got it too," I whispered.

She nodded. Her eyes were bright now.

"When?"

"Sophomore year in Boston."

The room tilted. Boston. She had gotten it in Boston. While I was running Trucks and pretending girls in tagged photos meant something they didn't. While I was checking the weather in her city like a stalker and telling myself it didn't count. While I was putting stars on my ribs and calling it survival.

"You got it then?" I repeated, because apparently my brain had stopped offering better lines.

She nodded again. "I told myself it was about home."

I laughed once, wrecked and disbelieving. "Same."

Avery smiled through the tears in her eyes. "Yeah. Same."

I moved before I thought too hard about it. One careful step, because my back might have been better but I was not stupid enough to make a grand emotional lunge and throw it out again.

I stopped in front of her. Close enough to touch. Close enough to see every trace of nerves and courage and grief on her face.

"You kept it," I said.

"So did you."

"I thought I was the only one."

"I did too."

The way she said that nearly broke me.

I lifted my hand and touched her waist lightly, waiting. She leaned into it. That was permission enough.

I pulled her in slowly, and she came willingly, like she had been waiting for me to stop being such a stubborn bastard and do it.

Her face tucked against my chest. My cheek rested in her hair. And for one long second, I just held her.

The girl I lost. The woman I got back. The same sky on both of us. Same wound. Same love. Same ten years spent thinking we were carrying something alone.

"I'm sorry," I said into her hair.

Her arms tightened around me. "For what?"

"For the pictures." My voice scraped on the words. "For making it look like you were replaceable. For every stupid thing I did because I was hurt and didn't know how to be anything else."

Avery held on tighter.

"I'm sorry too," she whispered. "For disappearing into Boston and thinking silence was kinder. For not calling. For letting myself believe the worst because it was easier than risking being wrong."

Damn.

If I had known then what I knew now, I would have burned down every phone tower in America before I let silence win like that.

But we didn't know.

That was the tragedy of being young. You think love means sacrifice, and half the time all it really means is courage.

I leaned back enough to look at her. "You weren't replaceable."

"I know that now."

"I mean it, Aves."

She nodded, eyes on mine. "I know."

There it was again. That phrase. Except this time, I believed her when she said it.

The hurt wasn't gone, but the truth was finally big enough to stand next to it.

I touched her lower back lightly through her shirt, warm even through the fabric.

"You carried me," I said.

"So did you."

A small laugh slipped out of me. "We are so stupid."

Avery smiled, wet-eyed and beautiful. "Very."

I looked around the room then. The fireplace. The beams. The windows. The whole damn house.

Something settled inside me that had been restless for years. It wasn't peace exactly. More like recognition. Like all this time I had been building around the absence of her, and now she was standing in the middle of it with the same sky on her skin, proving I hadn't imagined any of it.

"I didn't build this house for a ghost," I said quietly.

Avery's brows drew together. "What?"

I looked back at her. "I think I built it for the version of me that still believed I could have something real. Something warm. Something that felt like home even if I had no idea who'd be in it."

Her face softened. "And now?"

The question was small. Terrifying.

I smiled faintly. "Now I think maybe I got luckier than I deserved."

Avery's mouth trembled, then steadied. She lifted one hand and touched my side again, right over the tattoo.

Then she reached up and kissed me. Softly. Not the kind of kiss that tried to make up for ten lost years in one breath. One that said, I see it. I see you. I carried it too.

I kissed her back just as softly. And when we pulled apart, the house didn't feel like a monument to what we'd lost anymore.

It felt like the first place we had both finally been honest.

Avery stayed close, her hand still resting against my side, and I let my fingers find hers.

I didn't think about it. Neither did she. Our hands just fit together again like they were tired of being separated, like some part of us had decided before either of us was brave enough to say it out loud.

****

Avery's POV

His hand found mine immediately. Or maybe mine found his. It was hard to tell anymore.
There were things the body remembered before the heart was ready to admit them, and Nick's hand in mine was apparently one of them. His fingers slid between mine, warm and careful, his thumb brushing over my knuckles like he needed to reassure himself I was still there.

I was. God help me, I was.

For a while, we didn't talk. The television was on low, some highlight recap neither of us was really watching. The blue light shifted over Nick's face, catching on the tired shadows beneath his eyes, the rough stubbled line of his jaw, the little crease between his brows every time he breathed too deeply and his back reminded him not to get cocky.

He was better. But not recovered.

That mattered. It should have mattered more than the warmth of his palm against mine. More than the way his thumb kept tracing lazy, distracting circles over my skin. More than the fact that his shirt was back on but I could still see the tattoo in my mind like he had branded it behind my eyes.

It should have mattered. It did matter. Just not enough to stop my heart from trying to crawl out of my chest every time he looked at me.

Nick glanced over. "You're thinking again."

I gave him a look. "You keep accusing me of that like it's a character flaw."

"With you?" he said, his mouth twitching. "It's a warning system."

I smiled despite myself. "Maybe I'm thinking about how ridiculous we are."

His mouth curved. "Cruel topic."

"It's accurate."

"Still cruel."

His smile deepened, and something in the room shifted.

I felt it before he moved. That small, electric change in the air. Like the space between us had suddenly remembered every kiss we had not taken over the last ten years. Like all the old almosts had come home and crowded onto the couch with us.

Nick's gaze dropped to my mouth. My breath caught. His hand tightened around mine.

I looked at his mouth too. His smile faded. The teasing left his face first. Then the guardedness. What remained was softer and more dangerous.
Want, yes. But also tenderness.. A kind of longing that made my ribs ache because I knew it too well.

"Aves," he said quietly.

One word. That was all it took. I leaned in at the same time he did.

The kiss started soft. Careful. Almost cautious, like we were both aware of his back and the fragile line we were walking. But then Nick made a low sound against my mouth.

Not pain. Want. My entire body responded before my brain could file a single objection.

His hand slid from mine to my waist, warm through my shirt at the small of my back, his fingers spreading like he had been trying not to touch me there all night. I angled toward him, careful of his side, but close enough that his breath caught this time.

"Avery," he murmured against my mouth, and there was a rough edge in it now.

I kissed him again. The kiss grew hungrier. Deeper. Less careful.

That was the problem. The second I let myself have even a little more, I wanted all of it.

Not just the kiss. Not just his hand at my back or the heat of him beneath my palm when I touched his chest.

I wanted the years back. I wanted the truck bed and the meteor shower and every almost-call we had swallowed.

I wanted the teenage boy and the grown man and the tattoo hidden beneath his shirt.

I wanted the house and the porch and the version of me that fit here too easily.

Nick's hand slid up my back under my shirt, the heat of his palm on my bare skin lit a fire under me.

I shifted closer without thinking, then found myself on his lap straddling him. I could feel the heat and the hardness of him even through the layer of fabric.

I shifted again, my mouth never leaving his.
He inhaled sharply. This time, it was pain.

I froze instantly. "Back?"

His eyes were closed. His jaw was tight. "No."

"Nick."

He opened one eye. "Medium no?"

I pulled back immediately and climbed off of him. "Absolutely not."

"Wait." His hand flexed at my waist. "Come back."

"No."

"Aves." He whined so pitifully I almost gave in.

"No." I said adamantly.

"I'm fine."

"You are not fine."

"I was doing great." He pouted.

"You made a noise."

His mouth tipped, shameless even through the tension in his face. "That wasn't entirely pain."

My face went hot. "Nick."

"What?" he said, blinking at me with the audacity of a man who should have been supervised more closely. "You were on top of me. I'm just being honest."

"You are being injured and horny, which is a terrible combination."

His mouth opened. Then closed. Then he laughed once and immediately winced.

I pointed at him. "See?"

He pressed a hand to his lower back, looking both pained and deeply offended. "You can't say shit like that and expect me not to laugh."

"I can and I will."

"Cruel woman."

"For keeping you alive and functioning?"

His smile softened at that, even through the wince.

I sat back, putting a few careful inches between us. Nick looked at the distance like I had personally offended him.

"Aves," he said, his voice going pitiful in a way I did not trust even slightly.

"No."

"I didn't say anything yet."

"You were about to."

"I was going to say you're pretty."

I rolled my eyes. "You were not."

"I might've."

"You were going to try to convince me your back is fine."

His silence was confession enough.

I gave him a look.

He sighed and leaned his head back against the couch. "You're annoyingly hard to manipulate."

"That is the sexiest thing anyone has ever said to me."

His eyes flicked back to mine, heat flashing there so fast I nearly regretted the joke.

"Avery."

"Nope." I put one hand lightly on his chest. "Brakes."

His gaze dropped to my hand.Then back to my face. He swallowed. The teasing eased out of him, replaced by something more vulnerable.

"Too much?" he asked quietly.

My heart squeezed.

I shook my head. "Not emotionally."

His eyes searched mine. "Physically."

"For you, yes."

He closed his eyes for a second, like he was fighting both disappointment and the urge to argue.

I softened my voice. "Nick."

"I know."

"Do you?"

He opened his eyes and looked at me. The want was still there. There was tension in his jaw, roughness in his breathing, his hand still resting at my waist like letting go required negotiation.
But beneath that was trust. That undid me more than the heat.

"I know," he said. "I just..."

"I know."

"No, you don't." His mouth twisted faintly. "Or maybe you do, which is worse."

I brushed my thumb gently over his chest. "Tell me anyway."

He looked down at my hand. For a second, I thought he might make another joke. Deflect. Smile his way around the thing sitting between us.

But he didn't.

"I've wanted you for a long time," he said quietly. "Not just tonight."

My breath caught.

"And having you here, like this..." His hand flexed once at my waist. "In my house. On my couch. Looking at me like that after everything we just said..." He swallowed. "It's hard to remember I'm supposed to be smart."

A laugh slipped out of me, soft and aching. "That does sound like you."

His smile barely appeared. Then faded.

"I don't want to make you feel like I'm pushing."

"You're not."

"I don't want you to think I only want..."

"I don't."

His eyes lifted. I held his gaze because he needed to see that I meant it.

"Nick, I know what this is."

His throat moved. "Yeah?"

"Yes." My voice softened. "And I want you too."

His whole body went still. A little too still.

I pointed gently at him. "Do not make that face."

"What face?"

"The face that makes me want to forget medical advice."

His mouth curved slowly. "That face?"

"Yes. That one. Stop it."

"I don't know how." He grinned wider, dimples flashing.

"Liar."

"Maybe."

I shook my head, smiling despite myself, then leaned in and kissed him once. Soft. Brief. Not nearly enough. That was the whole point.

When I pulled back, his eyes stayed closed for half a second.

"Aves," he said, sounding wounded.

I touched his cheek. "We have time."

His eyes opened. The words hung there between us, warm and terrifying and huge.

I swallowed, then said them again because I needed to believe them too.

"We have plenty of time when you're fully recovered."

Something in his face shifted. Want was still there. Frustration too. But those words went deeper than both.

Time.

For so long, that had been the thing we didn't have. Or thought we didn't.

Time to wait. Time to ask. Time to fight. Time to call. Time to choose differently.

Now I was giving it to us as a promise.

Nick's hand slid from my waist to my hand, threading our fingers together.

"Plenty of time," he repeated quietly.

"Yes."

"When I'm fully recovered."

"Correct."

His mouth twitched. "Define fully."

I gave him a look. "Cleared by Drew."

He grimaced. "Cruel."

"And able to kiss me without making pain noises."

"That one's fair."

"And able to stand up without Logan threatening to buy you a whistle."

Nick blinked. "A whistle?"

"So you can alert us before doing something stupid."

He stared at me for one long moment. Then sighed. "Okay. That's fair too."

I laughed, and this time he smiled instead of joining me too hard.

Progress.

I shifted carefully until I was tucked against his side again, but not in a way that twisted him. His arm came around my shoulders slowly, and I guided it where it wouldn't pull his back.

"There," I said. "Safe."

He looked down at me. "You're very bossy for someone who just kissed me stupidly senseless."
"I kissed you responsibly."

His laugh came out as a quiet huff. "That's not a phrase that should work."

"Yet here we are."

His fingers brushed lightly over my shoulder. For a minute, the room settled again. The heat had not disappeared. Not even close. It had simply changed shape, from wildfire to ember, still glowing beneath everything.

Maybe that was better. Maybe this mattered too much to rush just because our bodies had finally caught up to what our hearts had been trying to say for years.

Nick pressed his lips to my hair. I closed my eyes.

"Thank you," he murmured.

I tilted my head slightly. "For stopping?"

"For caring enough to stop."

My chest tightened. I tipped my face up to look at him. "Always."

His expression softened so completely that it stole whatever clever thing I might have said next.

"I mean it," he said. "I know I'm a pain in the ass about needing help."

"You are."

"And stopping."

"Also yes."

"And being told no."

"Not a word you are used to hearing," I said.

His mouth twitched. "True." Then his eyes held mine. "But I do trust you."

That landed softly and stayed.

"I know," I whispered.

His brows lifted faintly. "Do you?"

I smiled. "I do now."

He looked down at our joined hands. His thumb moved once over my knuckles.

"I want it to be right," he said.

My breath caught.

"When it happens," he continued, voice rougher now. Quieter. "I don't want it to be because I got caught up in it and ignored my back and made you worry the whole time."

My throat tightened. "I don't want that either."

"I don't want you half-scared you're hurting me."

"Good."

"And I don't want Logan banging on the door with a Cajun filet biscuit and a trauma response."

A laugh broke out of me before I could stop it. Nick smiled, pleased with himself.

I shook my head. "You had such a beautiful moment going."

"I did."

"You ruined it."

"I improved it."

"You Loganed it."

He winced. "Too far."

I smiled, but then his fingers moved over mine and his face softened again.

"I want you when I can give you all of me," he said.

The words turned the room quiet. My pulse fluttered. They were all Nick. Honest and unguarded and brave enough not to hide behind the joke after making one.

I lifted our joined hands and kissed his knuckles.
"Then we wait."

His eyes darkened, but his smile was tender.

"You make waiting sound easier than it is."

"It's not easy."

"No?"

"No." I leaned closer, just enough that my mouth brushed his cheek when I spoke. "But I think you'll survive."

He exhaled slowly. "You're playing dirty."

"I am playing carefully."

"Feels dirty."

"Take it up with your spine."

He closed his eyes and sighed. "My spine is ruining my life."

"Your spine is making sure we don't repeat old patterns of poor decision-making."

"That is a generous interpretation."

"I'm a generous woman."

His eyes opened. "That's not what I was thinking."

"Brakes," I warned.

He groaned softly. "I miss when you were less responsible."

"You never knew me when I was less responsible."

"I knew you when you snuck out to dirt tracks and school nights after curfew and lied to your mother about it."

"That was strategic rebellion."

"That was hot."

"Nick."

"What?" His mouth curved. "Still being honest."

I smiled against his cheek, then pulled back before he could turn his head and trap me in another kiss.

He noticed immediately.His eyes narrowed. "Coward."

"Strategist."

"Same thing, corporate edition."

I laughed softly and settled back against him. Nick's arm tightened a fraction around me. Safe. Warm. Careful.

The television kept murmuring in the background, completely ignored. Outside, the porch light glowed against the dark windows. The swing moved in the breeze, empty and waiting.
Nick's cheek rested against my hair.

"I'm holding you to that," he said quietly.

"What?"

"Plenty of time."

I smiled, my fingers threading through his.

"Good."

"And fully recovered."

"Yes."

"Maybe no heating pad."

"Preferably no heating pad."

"And no medical instructions."

"Oh, there will still be instructions."

He groaned. "Avery."

I tipped my face up, smiling. "What? Hydration matters."

His eyes met mine, warm and amused and still full of want.

"You're going to boss me around forever, aren't you?"

The word landed before either of us could dodge it.

Forever.

Nick went still. So did I. For one second, all the air seemed to leave the room.

Forever was too big.Too soon. Too honest. Too close to everything this house had been quietly saying since I walked through the door.

Nick didn't joke. Neither did I. His expression softened, cautious and hopeful and aching.
I didn't run from it. I didn't make it smaller. I just squeezed his hand.

"Maybe," I whispered.

His breath caught. Then he lowered his mouth to mine again.

This kiss was slower. Gentler. A promise kept within bounds.

When it ended, he rested his forehead lightly against mine.

"Plenty of time," he whispered.

I closed my eyes. For once, those words didn't feel like something we were losing. They felt like something we had been given back.

"Plenty," I whispered.