Page 143 of Tangled Hearts
“Why not?” His voice dropped, those brown eyes bore into her soul.
“‘Cause if I admitted it, that meant I could lose you. And that was the one thing I wasn’t ready for. And I’m learning I’ve been selfish with love.”
Hov shook his head, pulling her hand into his. “You lost me anyway, kid. We both lost. Shit was empty without you.”
The words sat heavy between them. She stared at his hand gripping hers, rough and warm, thumb brushing against her knuckles like he was memorizing them all over again.
“I don’t wanna do that again,” she whispered. “I don’t wanna keep living without my person.”
“Then don’t,” he sat up. He needed her to understand what he was saying. Feel how he was coming. “Not if you serious this time. I ain’t got no pride left when it come to you. I just want us back on track.”
She pulled out her phone. “Let me play something. Create some vibes.”
Hov nodded, still holding her hand. “It’s always your world, kid… always.”
Slow dancing in this burning house… I don’t want to go nowhere.
Leon Thomas’ Breaking Point hit so hard, Knycole closed her eyes.
“I ain’t never heard this,” Hov sat up.
“Then listen, nigga,” she joked, still swaying to the music.
Hov tapped his lap. “Come sit right here so I can hear it better.”
“Or I can just turn it up,” she laughed but was already making her way to his lap.
She lowered onto him, body molding into his like it never forgot where it belonged. His arms came around her waist, while her head dropped to his shoulder. That warmth was secondnature. Hov had always been her home. From the nights he showed up broken and she fed him scraps she could barely spare, to the way he gave her everything she didn’t even know how to ask for.
Her mind flooded with snapshots of them. Good times, bad times, the in-between. Crying, laughing, fighting, then making up. Their whole story played like film rolling inside her, a reel that couldn’t ever be replaced. She realized in that moment there was no version of her life without him in it.
She bit her lip to stifle a smile. “I love it here.”
“Then act like it and stop making me wait.”
“I like when you puff your chest out and put your foot down with me.”
“Shit, that was all I needed to do to get your head right?”
“Mm hm,” she snickered, rubbing her fingers across the tattoo on his neck.
He laughed too. “You’re something else.”
“Something good?”
“Something, perfect.” He pushed his lips out for her to kiss them. “I’m saying everything when you’re the one that needs to be convincing me why now… why you choose me now?”
Knycole’s voice cracked, “it’s always been you… since back when an unloved little girl met an abused little boy. I knew then that nobody could love you the way I do, and nobody could ever come close to loving me the way you always have.” Her chest heaved as she fought to get the words out. “But I let my head get in the way. I didn’t feel worthy of something that pure. That much love was foreign to me. And I got scared. I got selfish. Selfish because even when I pulled away, I still wanted your love in some form. I couldn’t let it go, even when I didn’t give it back right.”
Her emotions spilled out through the tears sliding down her cheeks and her voice trembled with every word.
“But now I get it. It’s not about me choosing you over anybody else. It’s about me finally choosing me. And when I choose me, I have to choose you… because without you, I’m not whole. You’re the part of me I been missing, the part I can’t fake or replace. Quameek, I choose you. Not just now. Not just when it’s easy. Forever, kid.”
Her words clung to the air, bare and raw. There was no shield left for her to hide behind.
Hov’s chest pounded. He could feel her—her love pressed into him like it was carved on his skin, written in a language only he knew how to read.
He grabbed her hard, pulling her into him, kissing her with force, with years of ache and need pouring through it. His lips moved rough against hers, hungry, leaving marks he didn’t care about hiding.
