Page 114 of The Girl Who Inherits the Dead

“Because five years, I guess,” Delina admits. “If you want honesty.”

Gentle, telegraphing his motions, he reaches up and cradles her chin. They’re sitting so close to each other that her hip is pressed against his, her side against his.

And he’s searching for something in her eyes, something in her expression, and she doesn’t know what, so she just focuses on breathing, on making herself an open book for him to read.

“Honesty?” he asks, and she nods, of course. “Do you remember the Christmas we went to the town square lights? The first one?”

Of course she does. Prescott goes all in on Christmas lights around the courthouse, and the first year they went it actuallysnowed, leaving magical drifts of white with the lights twinkling through.

She had also just recovered from a bad bout of the flu, and had practically clung to him all day long, stubborn in the want to see the lights but utterly exhausted.

“And we went to the pizza place afterwards and it was so full and so warm? And they had the lights dimmed down so everyone could see the snow and the decorations outside?”

She doesn’t know how this relates to any of their conversation, of his mother being hurt and the confusion between the two of them. They had gone to the lights every year after that, too.

“We were crammed in that tiny booth, there were people everywhere, and then you rested your head against my shoulder,” he continues, and he gently pushes a strand of her hair behind her ear. “That’s when it stopped being about my job to keep you happy, that’s when I started wanting to make you happy.”

That was well over four and a half years ago. They had been dating for maybe three months.

“With your head on my shoulder, with the noise and the dim lights and too many people, I felt myself crumble into love with you. You were so tired, and with just that little touch all my ideas of keeping a professional distance with a professional amount of affection just…evaporated.” He gestures something flying away. “I never wanted to leave that moment.”

“Oh,” Delina says, soft.

“I still don’t,” he finishes, his voice so quiet she can barely hear him. “And now you…know. About me, about my parentage. About your mother and about all the lies. And I still don’t want to do anything that would lead away from that peace I felt in the pizza parlor, staring out at Christmas lights. You were complaining about being too warm and making jokes about howmany people were there and every word out of your mouth was the best thing I ever heard.”

He ducks his head, as if this takes so much out of him to tell her, and his words hang in the air between them.

And it’s on her to respond.

“More honesty?” Delina asks, and he nods as well. “I don’t know if I’ll be ever able to trust you again, fully. But I want to try.”

Her heart pounds in her chest, and his face breaks.

“Delly…” he trails off.

“You are so not allowed to keep secrets from me anymore,” she declares, as imperial as she can. “And that includes any details on how I can help with your mom.”

He tugs her into a one crushing, heart breaking hug. The sort of hug where he clings to her, as if she is a life raft in the middle of an ocean, like she’s the only thing that can keep his head above the water while he desperately treads.

She wraps her arms around him and clutches tight back.

His heart beats, loud and fast, and his arms tremble around her, like he’s so scared of hurting her but can’t hold any less tight, and she smushes her face into his chest.

“I don’t ever want to lie to you again,” he mumbles into her hair, pressing his cheek against the top of her head. “I don’t. I don’t.”

They’re still sitting on the carpet in the room, with his paintings spread over the bookcase and his small suitcase is leaned up against the bedside table, and it’s so far away from the peace of Prescott. The air smells different, the frost creeping along the window is different, the brilliant green of the trees under the snow is different.

The knowledge they have is different.

Instead of just her boyfriend Maison, who paints and bakes cookies when he’s stressed, who works with graphic design andlikes her dad, it’s Maison who put his life on the line for her. It’s Maison the half-demon, whose artery broke and spilled blood throughout his body. It’s Maison who is half terrified of her, of the problems her powers create. It’s Maison who’s spent almost every day in the last five years utterly stressed for her safety, who bent over backwards to make her happy.

It’s Maison, who also misses his mom.

“I’m not gonna let you keep me away from helping you,” she mumbles back. “You’re gonna have to accept that, too.”

His arms briefly tighten, before he pulls away, and that’s all the warning she gets before he grabs her chin and kisses her.

They’ve kissed hundreds of times. Thousands, probably, over the last five years, but none have ever felt like this.

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