Page 72 of After All This Time

Her mouth gapes open until she presses her full pink lips together.

I put my hands on hers to stop her from playing around with her shaking hands.

She looks at my hands and meets my gaze.

“You never have to do that with me,” I say.

When I would get in extremely uncomfortable situations at school or at home, I would fidget with anything I could get my hands on. Sometimes I would just play with my own hands.

I want her to know that she’s safe with me.

I don’t want to be a source of anxiety for her.

I want to be the calm before the storm.

I want to be her everything.

“Dani, are you ready?” I ask, standing in the foyer.

She comes out of her bedroom, purse slinging over her shoulder. “Yeah, I’m ready.”

Archie comes running up to us, meowing up a storm.

“Hi, buddy.” She smiles at him.

He rubs Dani’s legs, looking up at her.

“Hey, Archie.” I pick him up and he grabs onto my shirt.

“Archie!” She wrestles with him until she finally gets him off me, meeting my gaze after she puts him down on the floor.

She punches me in my right arm in a playful way.

“I told you to stop punching me.”

“I barely touched you.” Her nose scrunches.

I’ve never seen her do that before. If she ever does it again, I’m fucking done for.

“You don’t listen very well, do you?”

“You know I don’t listen, especially not to you.”

I lick my lips, walking closer to her. There’s only a sliver of a gap between us.

I’m looking at her face in pieces instead of as a whole.

Her freckles are peeking through the makeup on her nose. They fade out as you look under her eyes. Her eyelashes are long and thick.

She’s even more beautiful up close like this.

“I think we can change that. Don’t you?”

She rolls her eyes. “Good luck with that.”

We’re both breathing heavily and staring deeply into each other’s eyes.

God, I want to kiss her so fucking badly.

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