Page 57 of Finding Gideon
“You don’t need a plan,” Malcolm said, his voice low and unhurried. “You just need to keep showing up.”
My throat tightened. “I’ve spent years pretending I was fine. That I didn’t need anyone. That if I kept moving, I’d outrun all the stuff I didn’t want to deal with.” I laughed once, hollow and short. “Guess how well that worked.”
His hand moved, slow and careful, until his fingers brushed mine. A gentle press—just enough to sayI’m here.
“I like this,” he said after a moment. “You. Me. Sharing the kind of things we’d usually keep to ourselves. That feels real to me.”
I looked down at our hands. Mine was bigger, lighter in complexion. His was darker, warm in a way that made me think of sun-baked earth and something solid you could build on. Side by side, the difference was stark. Beautiful. Like two colors that shouldn’t work together on paper, but somehow made the rest of the world look incomplete without the other.
He didn’t try to take my hand completely. Just rested there, close enough for me to decide if I wanted more. That was Malcolm—never pushing, always letting me choose.
I saw it then, everything that made us different: him, thirty-six and sure of his place in the world; me, twenty-four and still drifting. He had a home here, a name people respected. I had a string of temporary roofs and a diploma-shaped gap where my college degree should’ve been. He healed people for a living. I was still figuring out how to keep myself from falling apart.
And yet, there were ways we were the same. Neither of us had gone looking for this. For each other. We’d only just started to admit, even to ourselves, what we wanted. And somehow, here, with him… it felt like the most real thing I’d ever touched.
“I want to stop pretending,” I murmured.
His breath hitched, just enough for me to hear. “Then stop.”
So I did. I slid my hand fully into his, feeling the quiet strength in his grip. The kind of strength that didn’t have to squeeze to hold on.
“I like you,” I said, the words raw but certain.
His gaze met mine, unflinching. “I like you too.”
The space between us stopped feeling like air and started feeling like an invitation. When he leaned in, it wasn’t rushed. His mouth met mine with a certainty that made me weak, slow at first, deepening until it pulled the air from my lungs. I kissed him back like I’d been holding it in for years.
Heat pooled low in my stomach, curling under my skin as his hand found the back of my neck.
His fingers splayed, a slow slide up into my hair, and I breathed him in—soap and cedar and the ghost of something honey-sweet.
He kissed like someone who didn’t need to prove anything, just wanted to feel everything. And God, I felt it.
By the time we parted, my breathing was uneven and my head was a mess of sensation and want.
Malcolm stayed close, his forehead almost touching mine. “Still okay?”
“Yeah,” I whispered. “Weirdly okay.”
He smiled, and it was softer than I’d ever seen it. “Good.”
I didn’t move away. Not yet. I just sat there with him in the low light, the quiet hum of the night around us, wondering how something so simple could feel this big.
We sat like that for a while, not speaking. Just... being. My chest felt cracked open, but not in a bad way. More like something inside me had finally been given space to breathe.
His thumb moved in slow circles where it rested against my neck. A small thing. But I noticed. God, I noticed everything about him now.
The heat between us hadn't faded. If anything, it was simmering beneath the stillness, waiting. But it wasn't desperate. It wasn’t some runaway train I couldn't stop. It was there becausewewere here. Present. Choosing this.
I let my hand move, hesitating only a second before placing it on his chest, over his heart. I could feel it beating. Steady. Strong.
I hesitated, my gaze snagging where his thumb moved down to trace slow, easy arcs against my knee. It wasn’t even deliberate—just this unconscious, grounding touch—but it made my skin feel alive in a way I didn’t quite have words for.
“What’s it feel like for you?” I asked, the question slipping out before I could decide if it was too much.
His head tilted, brow drawing in a little. “What do you mean?”
I shook my head quickly. “Not like… comparing me to anyone else. I’m not asking for that.” My throat worked, but I pushed through. “It’s just… I’ve never kissed anyone before you. So I don’t have a frame of reference. I guess I want to know what it’s like… from your side of it.”
