“Of course I forgive you,” Dan said, placing his hands over hers where she still touched him.
“I know I’m a mess. I know … I know I’m not easy to love…”
“Harper, loving you is the easiest thing I’ll ever do.”
Dan couldn’t say who moved first after that.
Maybe Harper leaned fully into him.
Maybe he grabbed her.
It didn’t matter.
They sank to the floor, gripping each other like life rafts in a storm. They held and squeezed and cried together, months and years of pain released to the world with each tear that fell. The pain couldn’t be held by the other, the suffering wasn’t the opposite’s to endure, but they could hold each other through it, root the other to a safe spot. Be the other’s home.
Days passed in minutes as they sat, wrapped in each other’s arms, words tumbling from lips, and sobs eventually turning back into breaths.
Dan smoothed his hands over Harper’s hair, her back, her arms. Anywhere he could reach, he wanted to touch.
“I’m going to therapy,” she whispered against his heart.
“I am too,” he said, pressing a kiss to her forehead, dragging his lips across her temple and down to her cheek. “I’m sorry I hurt you. I’m sorry I left the way I did. I felt like if I didn’t get out, I would drown.”
“I love you for leaving,” she said, leaning in to kiss along his jaw.
“You do?”
“Yes. I love you for chasing what you love. I love you for doing what you needed to do for you.” She kissed across his eyelids, his nose. “But, most of all, I love you for showing me that love doesn’t have to end in loss.”
Harper pulled her head back to look up at him. There was nothing he could do but kiss her.
It wasn’t frantic. It wasn’t wild.
It was the calm in the eye of the storm.
It was everything they needed.
Mind.
Body.
World.
All centered on that singular point of pleasure where their lips met. They were a million shattered pieces kissed back into place.
EPILOGUE
6 MONTHS LATER
“Get. Off. Me.”
Harper pushed against Dan’s deadweight stretched along her body. His laugh pressed her further into the mattress.
“Let me sleep in peace, you monster,” she said. She’d just finished a brutal on-call rotation at the hospital, and had dragged herself to Dan’s apartment, only to sleep for sixteen hours straight.
“I’ve made coffee,” he purred into her ear. “Will you get out of bed for coffee?”
Harper smiled against his chest but shook her head. “I don’t want to get up.”
Dan pushed up onto his hands and looked down at her. His eyes narrowed and she giggled in anticipation. He dove back down, rubbing his day-old scruff against her neck without mercy.
She shrieked and laughed, thumping her fists on his back.
“I know what will wake you up,” he whispered against her skin, pulling back to fix her with a lazy grin before dropping a kiss against her neck.
He moved down her body slowly, lovingly, placing kisses along every inch of her. Her fingers, the backs of her knees, the soles of her feet—nothing was spared from his devoted onslaught.
And then the asshole started tickling her. Mercilessly. Torturing her until she shrieked and giggled and swore on Judy’s life that she’d get out of bed, dear God, just stop! She loved every second of it.
Pleased with his work, Dan planted a kiss on her lips then got out of bed.
“Up, lazy bug. It’s our day off.”
With her on-call rotations, and Dan’s own work demands, their schedules didn’t align as much as either would like, but they always sucked up every second of their days off together, laughing and running around the city like two maniacs in love, and today would be no different.
Dan stood in the square of light pouring in through the window and stretched while Harper admired her usual morning view. She’d never get tired of looking at him. Lean limbs reaching toward the ceiling, a hand running through mussed hair, his radiant energy brightening the room.
Even though they didn’t officially live together, they spent most nights at one person’s place or the other, creating little happy nests in both small apartments.
Harper loved his patterns and quirks. Her heart swelled in tenderness when he’d fumble his long legs into sweatpants, at the way he stripped off his socks at the end of the day. The pad of his steps through the apartment was the soundtrack to her happiest moments.