Page 51 of Crossed Paths
I shake my head, quietly. “Why is it all so complicated?”
He doesn’t speak. So I look at him—really look.
“Why can’t it ever just be easy?” I ask, voice cracking at the edges. “Just once. Why can’t it be simple?”
Hunter’s brow furrows, and for a second, he looks like he might break in half. But then he steps closer.
“Because,” he says gently, “if it were easy… we’d never know what it would feel like to lose each other.”
The words hit hard—straight through the ribs.
I swallow the lump that’s rising.
“It hurt,” I whisper. “It hurt a lot. Thinking I’d lost you.”
His hand twitches like he wants to touch me but doesn’t. Not yet.
“You’ll never lose me,” he says, steady now. “Not as long as you want me. I’m here.”
Finally, his hand lifts slowly, like he’s giving me time to move away, but I don’t. I stay rooted to the floor as his fingers brush my jaw and then slide to my cheek. He cups my face so gently it almost undoes me.
Part of me tells myself to step back. To hold the line. But I don’t want to.
Because somewhere between the silence and the shouting, I’ve made up my mind. I believe him. Ibelievehim.
And that belief, quiet and terrifying, is somehow the most powerful thing I’ve felt in years.
So instead of pulling away, I step in.
I close the distance, tilt my chin, and kiss him.
No anger, no fear—just the weight of everything we nearly lost, and the quiet hope that maybe we’re finally choosing each other for real.
Epilogue
Hunter
It’s the first properlyhot day of summer, and somehow, I’ve managed to drag Alexandra out for a walk.
Not to a Ramblers’ meeting—we haven’t managed one of those in months. Saturdays are spoken for now. She’s flat-out at the pub, I’m pulled in three directions at the Hall. Weekends pass in a blur of arrivals, orders, last-minute disasters, and if we’re lucky, a shared glass of something cold at the end of the night.
But we are both off every Monday now. And today is Monday.Ourday.
We’d climbed Wookie Hill—I told her the name twice, and she still couldn't repeat it back to me if her life depended on it. Not that I mind. She was too busy laughing when we reached the top, cheeks flushed, hair sticking to her forehead, grumbling about my ‘bloody enthusiastic stride.’
Now we’re on our way back down, feet scuffing over dry grass and loose stone. The breeze has shifted—cooler now, with the tang of something sharpin the air.
Above us, black clouds are pulling across the sky like someone’s dragging a curtain over the sun.
There’s a low rumble of thunder in the distance.
Alex stops and turns, squinting upward. “Right,” she mutters, “that’s going to break any second.”
I smile, watching her tuck a piece of hair behind her ear with the kind of frown she saves for burnt toast or customers who are rude.
She squints toward a rise in the field, then changes course without a word.
Her fingers find mine, warm and certain, and she gives a tug.
