Page 125 of Merry Me
“Can we go?”
He didn’t blink. Just squeezed my hand and started walking—pulling me gently, purposefully, out of the room and into the night.
CHAPTER 23
EASTON
Iwoke before the sun, the sky outside still curled in that soft pre-dawn blue—the kind that made the world feel hushed and waiting.
She was still in my arms.
Natalie.
She was curled toward me, her cheek pressed to my chest, one hand tucked between us like she needed to feel my heartbeat to keep her own steady. Her lashes rested dark against her cheeks, still damp at the corners, and the tip of her nose was pink from crying.
She had cried for hours.
Quiet at first, then loud enough to crack me in half. The kind of crying that didn’t ask for comfort, but still begged for it. All I could do was hold her and hope she didn’t push me away. Hope I was enough.
And I didn’t mean enough to stop her tears—I knew better than that. I meant enough to be there. To stay. To matter when the pieces finally settled again.
I was scared her father had undone everything we’d rebuilt this week.
That the weight of it all—the memory of what he hadn’t been, the shame she still carried, the hurt she tried sohard to keep tucked under that sharp wit—was going to swallow us whole. That she’d decide this,us, was too much. Too messy. Too close to the pain.
And the thing was, I got it.
But I loved her.
God, I loved her.
It wasn’t clean or patient or poetic. It was unhinged. Raw. The kind of love that made my ribs hurt, like my heart was too big for the cage it was in.
She shifted in her sleep, her leg brushing mine under the covers, and I held my breath like she might vanish if I moved too fast.
I had stayed up most of the night just watching her. Not in a creepy way—okay, maybe in a slightly creepy way—but mostly in that reverent,I-can’t-believe-she’s-herekind of way. The way you watch a sunrise and know it’s going to be the best part of your whole damn day.
She didn’t know.
How much I had wanted this. How much I had wantedher—not just the version she gave the world, but the one who had looked at me last night with tear-streaked cheeks and let herself fall apart in my arms.
I would’ve taken all the pieces. Every single one. Glued them back together with my bare hands if that was what it took.
And if she changed her mind now?
If she woke up and decided this week hadn’t meant what I thought it had—what Ifeltit had—I wouldn’t go back to California. Not really.
Sure, I’d pack my things. I’d get on a plane. But I’d follow her.
Quietly, at first. A respectable distance, obviously. But I’d find ways to be near. To keep her laughing. To scare off every guy who looked at her sideways. To remind her every damn day that I was the guy who knew her middle name and her go-to drive-through order, and how she talked to paintings when she thought no one was watching.
I’d try to change her mind for the rest of my life if I had to.
Yeah, it sounded dramatic. Borderline pathetic, maybe. But it was true.
She stirred again, her nose nuzzling against my chest. Then, slowly, her lashes fluttered open.
And she looked up at me.
