You, With a View(96)

“I saw it right after I parked.”

“Theo, I—”

“Me first,” he interrupts, but it’s so gentle that my eyes flood. “Since I came all this way.”

“Typical of you to try to take first, but—” I break off with a smile when he laughs. “Go ahead.”

Theo sobers immediately. “I’m sorry for what I said on Monday and how I shut down. I’m sorry for not explaining myself better when I said our situations weren’t the same. I didn’t mean our job losses, Noelle. I meant what happened after them.”

I nod silently, so he knows I’m really listening.

He makes a frustrated noise from the back of his throat. “You have a strong support system, and I’m used to being alone. It’s . . . it’s been better for me, historically, to be that way and now my default is processing bad things by myself. It’s hard for me to trust that it won’t be used against me. I didn’t think you’d want me if you knew what had happened, so I thought I was delaying the inevitable by not telling you.”

“I do want you. No matter what.”

“I know. It took me a while to get there. I had to process what you said and realize that you want to be with me, even with the shit I’m going through.” He lets out a soft breath that stirs the hair at my temple. His words move over my heart the same way—a cool whisper that brings relief. “I’m sorry I kept you waiting.”

“I’m sorry, too,” I say. “For not recognizing that it might take you longer to trust me with something this significant and pushing you to share before you were ready. I made an already shitty situation worse.”

“You were hurt.”

“So were you. My pain doesn’t supersede yours.” Emotion swells in my throat at the look in his eyes—a powerful affection I recognize but want him to name. Theo waits, as patient as I should have been with him, his hands sweeping up my arms. “Clearly we still have a lot to learn about each other and how we respond to things, but I want to learn your—” I shake my head. “I’m not going to call them secrets anymore. Your truths, I guess, when you’re ready to give them to me.”

“Funny you mention that.” His eyes dart past me, further into the room. “Can I come in?”

I push back against him as he steps forward, tilting my chin back. “Can you give me a proper hello first?”

He raises an eyebrow. “Is that the price of admission, Shepard?”

“Yes,” I say impatiently, smiling when he laughs quietly.

But our amusement is short-lived. He cups my jaw, his fingers fanning over my cheek to bring me to him. His touch ignites me, and this close, he can see it. His mouth curls up right before it brushes against mine.

I let out a quiet, needy sound, fisting his shirt in my hands. He sighs out my name, kisses me softly once and then again. I push in closer, but he keeps it light. Patient.

“Hi,” he murmurs against my mouth.

“Hi,” I manage to get out.

“Today went well?”

My eyes fill. Of course he’d ask about that. “Yes, it was amazing.”

I get his dimple, a brilliant, proud smile. “I knew it would be.”

“It makes it more real now that I’ve told you.” A tear starts to fall down my cheek, but Theo’s there to catch it.

“I’m about to know the feeling,” he says with a private smile I wonder at. But he just kisses me again, lingering like he wants to make sure this is real. “Let’s go talk.”

Leaving my luggage at the door, he leads us to the couch, setting down a bag I didn’t notice before.

“How are you feeling about work?” I ask.

He slides me a look and pulls out a folder, then circles my wrist to pull me down onto the couch.

“It’s a lot, but I’ll be fine,” he says. “I had an oddly civil talk with Anton and Matias and a rough one with my dad.”

“What happened?”

“I told him about the trip Granddad and I took with you. He wasn’t thrilled about our family business being splashed all over the internet.” I grimace, but Theo just shakes his head, looking surprisingly unruffled about it. “I knew he’d hate it. But I didn’t. Those two weeks meant everything to me—and to Granddad—and that matters.”

My heart squeezes at the steel in his voice.

“Anyway, he moved on from that to focus on what happened with my job. He’s having a harder time letting go of the dream than I did, but I told him he has to. I’m not going to talk to him until he does. His voice can’t be louder than mine in my own head, you know?” His gaze locks with mine. “And I’ve got people in my corner who’ll help drown it out, anyway.”

I scoot closer to him, my chest tight. It’s a massive step, and I can see in his eyes that he knows it, that some weight has been lifted by finally erecting that boundary. “I’m so proud of you.”

“You didn’t say that like you were about to throw up like last time,” he says, grinning. “Progress.”

I roll my watery eyes, then appraise him, letting my gaze run over his face. “You’re really okay?”

His voice is pitched equally low when he says, “Better now.”