Page 268 of Falling Backwards
And I.
Laugh.
My.
Assoff.
So much so that I barely hear her say, “Luke!”more quietly than she’s said anything else.
“Holy fuck!”I manage to get out, holding my stomach.“Magnolia!”
She comes to me with her wide eyes looking all around for signs that she’s in trouble, her hands hovering like she’s ready to stifle herself again despite that our battle has ended.Snow from my attack is all over the front of her coat and her work pants, and plenty more has been gathering on her hair because it’s still coming down out here.
The thought,Perfection,explodes through my mind.
She’s the picture of a girl who’s worried about breaking a rule of some kind and of a girl who’s been having fun without a care in the world.She’s said my name in admonishment even as she’s coming into my personal space with gentle ease.She’s Maggie Moss through and through.And it is lighting me up from the inside.
Stopping in front of me, she says, “I can’t believe you made me—”
I cut us both off with a kiss—her words, my laughter—though I can’t keep my smile from making its own interruption.After a second, she’s the one who chuckles, the sound so light, and I wrap her waist and neck in my arms and feel her arms encircle me too.We go through one short, cold kiss after another until our amusement is under control and our lips can press and hold in their own kind of embrace.
But I cut that off, too, before very long at all, because this is the moment.
With my heartbeat going wild, I have to tell her in a hushed spill, “I love you.”
“Iloveyou,” she exhales jaggedly, no pause, like the words are alive and bursting free after being held captive in her chest like mine have been in my own.
And it’s…God…it’s breathtaking.
Beautiful.
Beyond anything good I’ve ever felt, heard, thought.
I pull back enough to see her face in the glow of the nearby light.Her eyes are full of worlds that I’m the center of, her cheeks tinged with pink, her hair dusted with those snowflakes—and somehow it’s all even more breathtaking, beautiful, beyond any other thing I’ve known in my life.It doesn’t make sense for that highest level to be passed even an iota, but it is.
She loves me back.
We love each other.
She really is mine.
I…I don’t know if I want to kiss her again or fucking thank her.
One of her chilled hands seeks out my chilled cheek as her lips near mine;shewants another kiss for sure.I let that sway me.
We press back in, and everything around us goes on being silently serene.
Nothing is awry.Nothing complains.Nothing intrudes.
There is only us.
In the back of my mind, I know we should go indoors soon.It’s late and so cold, and we’re damp from our snow fight.But this is our radiant victory to savor, so…savor it we do.
We’ve earned it.
M A G G I E
