Page 82 of Milo
I grab his face between my hands, feeling the sharpness of his cheekbones against my palms. I look at his long nose, fulllips with the small scar on the top, and those blue eyes that I’ve seemingly been looking into all my life and that are full of so much turbulent emotion. “I did,” I say softly. “I really love you, Niall, and I know we’ve come a long way from what we originally said we’d do, but I can’t stop it.”
“Don’t stop,” he says hoarsely. “Please don’t ever stop.” His hands on my shoulders knead the skin almost unconsciously. “I love you too, Lo, so much. I always will.”
I lift up to him and he lowers his face at the same time and then we’re kissing. The rain splatters harder, cold drops falling on our heads and faces. But it doesn’t dull the sense of joy in me that the man I love loves me back. That pure simple thought illuminates my world, and it seems to me that while others might look at this place as unfitting for a declaration of love, to me it’s as if we’re standing in the most beautiful place in the world. The wind and the rain are just echoes of the most powerful and natural feeling I’ve ever had in my life.
Finally, he draws back and gives a whoop, lifting me and spinning me. I give a snort of laughter because I have to. It feels like it’s filling me. Only he would spin me like an overgrown kid.
“You love me,” he says, and he sounds almost awed. “I can’t believe you love me.”
Blinking in the rain, I cup his face, feeling the cold skin, and laugh. “I can’t believe I managed to say it without stuttering.”
He puts me down and looks at me steadily, his arms still around me as if he can’t bear to let go. “If you had stuttered it would still have meant the same,” he says calmly, a wealth of love in his eyes and voice, making me blink back the tears. “What matters to me, Lo, iswhatyou say, not how you say it.” He laughs suddenly. “And fuck, you gave Thomas what for.” He shakes his head, enjoyment written large on his face. “That’s the best thing I’ve ever heard. I wish I’d recorded it so I could playit again and again.” He looks at me. “How do you feel, darling? That was a big dragon to slay tonight.”
I nestle into him. “I feel good,” I say slowly. “I feel at peace for the first time.” We stand still for a second and I stir. “It’s been a funny sort of night. Got a chance at my old career back and gave my ex a piece of my mind. Like a lot of demons have gone.” He stiffens and I pull back. “What?”
“Not all of the demons,” he says slowly, reluctance written all over him.
“What do you mean?”
“The job.”
I straighten. “Oh yes, the job. You said I should think about it.” Hurt stirs for a second. “Do you want me to go?”
“I think that it’s your last dragon to slay,” he says unwillingly.
“Which I’m perfectly capable of doing,” I say sharply. “I slew my own tonight. You were there and you didn’t have to help me. Not like before.”
“I was, and I couldn’t be prouder of you than I am now, but I want a future with you free of doubt and wishful thinking. And sweetheart, a large part of you still somehow sees yourself as less because once upon a time I had to rescue you. And I don’t want that to become a problem between us.”
I open my mouth to argue but I can’t, and he gives a sad sigh and leans down to kiss me.
“Sweetheart, love is a partnership and you can’t see that yet. You say you don’t want someone to be responsible for your happiness but it’s natural in a good relationship when you love the other person. It just has to be with the right person. Thomas was no good because it was like you giving your love to a black hole. He swallowed it up and gave nothing back. Real love goes both ways. It gives back what you give to it tenfold. I might rescue you sometimes, but I know that when I need you you’llrescue me back. I love you, so that means I want the absolute best for you, but I’d also hope that you’d want the same for me.”
“I do,” I burst out, my voice shaking, and he strokes my hair back with an impossibly tender look on his face.
“There you are then. I will love you right down to my bones until the day we die. We’ll argue and fall out and I’m sure at times we really won’t like each other, but I will be your fucking cheerleader for the rest of your life because you’re epic and I want the whole world to know that shit.”
“You should write the verses in greeting cards.” He laughs, and I stroke his face. “I’ll always love you too.”
“I know you will, but that love has to be the foundation that keeps us together and whole. It’s what makes a person care more for his lover than he does for himself. It’s wanting the best for that person regardless of the personal cost.” He swallows audibly. “It’s why I’m going to tell you to take that job.” He looks hard at me. “Because I love you.”
“You want me to go?” I say it slowly, no longer hurt because the sincerity and love are written all over him.
“I want you to go and come back,” he says sharply. “Never mistake that, Lo. You’re my boomerang, and while you’re flying free, I want it to be with the knowledge that you’re on a trajectory that leads back to me.”
I sniffle, feeling tears in my throat, and he croons under his breath and hugs me tight. “I don’t want you to go,” he says fiercely. “But maybe you have to, Lo.” He sighs. “You have nothing to prove to meever. I love every single thing about you from your surprisingly thin toes to your very messy head.” I snort, and he kisses my head hard. “I love the way you sing off key and completely mangle all song lyrics until they’re unrecognisable. I love the way you presume I know what you’re thinking and proceed to involve me in conversations that are quite frankly incomprehensible. I even love your habit of readingthree books at once and leaving the top off the jam.” He sighs. “So, you never need to prove anything to me, but I think that just maybe you need to prove something to you.”
I breathe in, feeling love and terror holding onto my heart in a tight grip. I’ve only just got him and he’s so fucking precious to me, but I know deep inside me that he’s right.
“I think I do,” I say in a low voice. “Niall, I really think I do.”
He sighs and pulls me closer, and as we stand on the windswept street as the rain pours down on us, I can almost hear the clock that I’ve set ticking away my time here.
Chapter
Eighteen
All I know is that my hands and head are full of him and that’s the way it always will be.
