Page 50 of Finding Gideon
An ache sliced through my chest. I might never get over the pain of losing my parents. If I’d lost them to death, it would have been bad—but losing them to their hatred of me was even worse.
Malcolm’s jaw shifted, like he was holding back the first thing that wanted to come out. He moved a step closer. “That’s surviving. Don’t blame yourself for how you held it together when life as you knew it was upended.”
The words didn’t fix anything, but the way he said them made the ground under me feel a little more solid.
“You make it sound like I did something brave,” I said, though my voice didn’t sound convinced. “Most days it just felt like… not drowning.”
His mouth curved—barely there, more like the idea of a smile than the real thing. “Sometimes not drowning is the bravest thing.”
For a second, neither of us spoke. Besides Dennis’s slow breathing, the only sound the faint tick of the cooling stove. Malcolm’s gaze stayed on me in a way that made it hard to breathe.
“I’ve been thinking about that kiss,” he said finally. “About what it means for me.”
My pulse kicked. “And?”
He exhaled, dragging a hand along the edge of the table, perhaps grounding himself. “I’ve only ever been with women. I never questioned my choices, never wanted to. Before last night, I thought I knew exactly who I was and wasn’t…” He hesitated, searching for the right words. “But that kiss didn’t feel wrong. It didn’t feel like crossing a line. It felt… good. Different. And I want to understand that. I want to understandyou.”
“I don’t know how to explain me,” I admitted. “But… maybe we can figure out who we are together?”
The quiet between us felt electric, like the still before a storm breaks.
I rose to my feet, the movement almost involuntary. “Can I—Can we… um?”
Malcolm’s gaze held mine, no hesitation in his voice. “Yeah.”
One step brought me close enough to feel the heat radiating from him. My pulse was a drum in my ears. I didn’t know who moved first—maybe we moved in unison—but then his mouthwas on mine, slow and deliberate, like he wanted to learn every curve, every shape, one unhurried second at a time.
His mouth was warm, the faint scrape of stubble brushing my skin. I caught hints of tomato and pepper from dinner, layered over something that was entirely him.
When we parted, we stayed close enough that our breaths mingled.
“It feels...” I searched for the right word, “...like being handed something I didn’t know I wanted until it was already mine.”
Malcolm’s lips curved slightly. “It feels like a door I didn’t know was there just opened, and now I can’t stop looking inside.”
I huffed out a laugh—small, incredulous. “That was way too poetic for grilled cheese night.”
His grin deepened. “Then maybe we should try it again and see what we come up with.”
This time, there was no testing gravity. We met with a little more certainty, a little more press, the kind of kiss that says yes, I remember the taste of this.
When we broke apart again, I laughed—soft and a little breathless—at the impossibility of it all. Two grown men who’d never imagined they’d be here, suddenly sounding like teenagers.
And somehow, that felt as important as the kiss.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said.
“You haven’t.”
“I could.” His voice was rough. “I could screw this up without even trying to. I don’t want to be the reason you look back ten years from now and feel like you missed out on something. Like I took something from you.”
My heart ached. Not because he was wrong to worry, but because he thoughthewas the danger.
“You didn’t take anything from me,” I said. “You gave me something. A piece of myself I didn’t even know was missing.”
I couldn’t explain how full my chest felt. Like it might break under the pressure of all the things I’d never said out loud. Not to Garrett or to anyone.
“I didn’t know I could feel like this,” I admitted. “I didn’t think I was made for it. For… wanting. Not in that way.”
