Page 63 of California Wild

He didn’t look at her. He couldn’t. He just kept running his fingers through her hair, grounding himself.

“Last year. When I was getting clean. I went back to Pensacola.”

She didn’t say anything.

Didn’t push.

Didn’t try to fill the silence.

So he kept going.

“Walked past the old house. It still had the same cracked driveway. New paint, but same busted porch, same crooked fence. I could still hear her yelling, you know? My mom. Like the walls still held it.”

Her hand moved over his stomach. Slow. Soft. Holding him.

It gutted him.

He swallowed hard. “Went by the trailer we moved into after she finally left. Then the shelter. Then the projects.”

He let out a sharp breath, eyes still fixed on the ceiling like if he blinked, he’d lose control of it all. “Saw my old bedroom window. The one I used to stare out of while the neighbors fought or the cops lit up the street. Could still smell the mildew onthe curtains. Could still hear her come home drunk, slamming things. Crying.”

Her fingers tightened on him.

He finally looked at her.

She didn’t speak. Her expression said enough—wide eyes, glassy with unshed emotion. Like she could feel it. Every word. Every wound.

Jesse let out a slow, shaky laugh. “I never told you any of this, did I?”

She shook her head.

“Yeah.” He swallowed. “Didn’t think so.”

“Why now?” she whispered.

He didn’t know how to answer that. Not really. But he said the only thing that felt true.

“Because you’re here.”

Her breath hitched.

And in that instant—he knew she understood. Not just the words. The weight of them. The cost.

She leaned in and pressed a kiss over his heart.

Just one. Soft. Steady.

It wrecked him.

He tightened his arms around her, burying his face in the curve of her neck, breathing her in like she was oxygen.

And then—his lips found hers. This time not wild. Not desperate. But slow. Deep. Real.

It said everything he hadn’t.

Everything he’d been too afraid to feel.

And when it ended—when they were still wrapped around each other, when her cheek rested against his chest, her lashes brushing his skin—he broke the silence.

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