Because no one had ever asked me that before.
Not likethat.
I took a deep breath.
“I don’t want to disappear again,” I said finally. “I don’t want to live in the shadows. I want a real life. Something I build. Not something I run from or survive through.”
His grip on me tightened just a little. “That’s good,” he said. “That’s really good.”
I looked up at him. “What about you?”
“I want whatever you want,” he said simply. “A house. A home. Somewhere we can park the truck and put up a mailbox with both our names on it.”
I smiled. “You want a mailbox?”
“I want you.”
The words hit me like sunlight—warm and gentle and blinding in the best way.
I reached up and cradled his face in my hands.
“I don’t know how to be normal,” I whispered. “I don’t even know what that looks like anymore.”
He leaned into my touch.
“Good,” he said. “Because I don’t want normal. I wantyou.Exactly as you are.”
And right there, with his lips on mine and the world going quiet again, I finally believed it.
I wasn’t lost anymore.
I was found.
Epilogue
Three Months Later
Jude
The house was quieter these days.
Not tense quiet.
Notwatching-your-sixquiet.
Just... peace.
The kind that lived in coffee cups left half full, bare feet on hardwood floors, and the low hum of a guitar playing in the next room.
Cyclone sat on the back porch, strumming something soft while our dog—yes,ourdog, a rescue mutt named Bravo—dozed at his feet. He wore his favorite old jeans, the ones that should’ve been thrown out months ago, and a plain white T-shirt that clung in all the right ways.
I leaned in the doorway and just watched him for a minute.
God, I loved him.
Not because he saved me.
But because he never asked me to be anything other thanme.