Page 86 of Sunny Skies Ahead
“They’re delicious. Thank you for this. It’s been ages since I had breakfast for dinner.”
“It’s one of my specialties,” I said proudly.
“I learn more about you every day,” Kam said quietly. I put my fork down and bit my bottom lip.
“Kam, I’m—”
“You don’t need to apologize,” Kam said, holding up a hand. “I need—Iwantyou to have the facts about what happened with Jacob before we go any further. And I need you to know that the ball is in your court, Imogen. If you want to end this, I will walk away and we’ll never talk about it again. I will be whatever you need me to be. But I want you to have all the facts before you make that choice.”
My mouth went impossibly dry, but I nodded, encouraging him to say what he needed to say.
“I didn’t hit Jacob.”
All of the air seemed to vanish from the room. I picked my fork up again just to have something to do with my hands. I stabbed at one of the strawberry slices and avoided Kam’s gaze.
“I wanted to. I’m not going to sit here and pretend like I didn’t want to. But I didn’t. It’s important to me that you know I chose not to.”
I speared another strawberry slice onto the fork as my mind spun around in circles.
“Okay,” I said. “That’s—that’s good.”
Good? Jesus, I needed to get a grip.
“I get angry just like everyone else,” Kam said. “But I don’t like it. I don’t like the feeling of being pissed off, the way it makes me act towards the people I love most in my life. I’m still working on figuring out how to release that anger on a more regular basis, so what happened with Jacob willneverhappen again.”
“Has it happened before?”
“No,” Kam said. “The only time I’ve ever put my hands on someone else is when the Marine Corps told me to, or when someone asked me to touch them.”
My cheeks flushed. I finally dared to meet his gaze, and there it was. Every single thing he had left to give me was written on his face, etched into the corded muscles of his chest and arms. He was laying every card out on the table for me to decide.
It was a long few minutes before I found my words. Kam was laying everything out, and it was only fair that I did thesame. That’s why I’d wanted him to come here, and the fear I’d harbored about this conversation was quickly dissipating, replaced by a current of excitement.
“I don’t know how I didn’t see it before.”
I watched Kameron’s face and smiled when his features shifted, signaling my words had hit home.
“Your focus was elsewhere,” Kam said, fighting to keep his voice even.
“No, it wasn’t,” I said, putting my fork down and pushing my plate away from me. “I was trying too damn hard to create a new reality that I kept missing what was right in front of me. That’s the nature of trauma sometimes, isn’t it? You spend all of this time fighting for your life, and when you finally break free, you’re flailing. Because even though that person was awful to you, they became a structural part of your life. And when you leave them, or they leave you, the floor falls out from under you, because somehow they became part of your foundation, even when you didn’t want them to.”
Kam stayed silent. I fiddled with a loose thread on my sweater while I figured out where to go next.
“I’ve spent most of the last few years with my head in the sand. Not because I wanted it there, but because I felt like that was my only option to keep myself safe. I’ve been running since I met you, running from the way your presence makes my heart beat faster, the way my mind stills when I’m in your arms. But now I’m realizing that my brain lied to me. I’m not safer on my own. I’m safer withyou. Because of how you make me feel. How you take care of me without even meaning to. I gravitate towards you, and I’m tired of pretending like I don’t.”
Within seconds, he was standing, making his way to me. He wrapped his gloriously thick arms around my waist and picked me up. I relaxed into him instantly, and my body sang with the nearness of him, of how right it felt to be in his arms. He turned us around, so I was sitting on the kitchen counter. He stepped between my legs and my very blood hummed with the sensation ofhim.
“You can’t fit what we have in a neat box on your spreadsheet,” he murmured. His palms were face down on my thighs, squeezing gently. The touch was delicate and grounding and everything I’d ever wanted, everneeded. “You can’t explain the depth of my feelings for you through any kind of rational, scientific thinking. Because my love for you isn’t rational. It’s a storm, Imogen. It’s a damn wildfire that encompasses every fiber of my being whenever you’re near me. It’s the way my heart pounds when I hear your laugh, and the way I want to make you make that sound every day for the rest of my freaking life.”
My lips trembled as I fought to keep my tears at bay, and still he pressed on. This was it. This was the moment where everything came together after all this time.
“I love you, Imogen,” he said, though I barely heard the words as he spoke them over the sound of my beating heart. “I have loved you for months.”
“Since the kiss on the dock?” I said as I wrapped my arms around his neck. He shivered as my nails grazed the sensitive skin.
“Before,” he answered immediately, pulling me even closer so our bodies were flush against each other. Hishands moved to my waist, squeezing gently. “Long before that day at the dock. Long before that night at the tiny house. Long before I let you bring a random dog into my house and make him part of our family.”
Upon hearing his name, Bass let out a contented sigh from where he was sleeping on the couch.
