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To discovering that you’re allowed to fall in love as many times as possible in your lifetime. Whether it’s with a new lover or an old friend. Whether it’s with the same person, but new versions of each other as you grow. Fucking fall. Do it loudly. Do it at your own pace. Rush. Ease in. Enjoy an instant lust, a slow burn, or a happy for now. Rebound. Fall again.
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Violence is easier to digest when it doesn’t touch you personally.
“You sound so pretty when you’re pissed off and moaning for me.” I can feel her smile before I see it.
“Believe me when I say that I’ve tried to forget. But those sounds you made . . . The way you came so beautifully for me . . .” He lets out a small laugh, and my stomach swoops. “That’s not something a man forgets.” When he moves a few inches closer, I have to suppress a shiver. “So no, I didn’t forget your name. You’re making that really fucking hard for me.”
I give her the only truth that really matters. “I don’t trust you.” Her breath hitches as my thumb runs along her jaw toward her mouth. “But you want to,” she says, her eyes never leaving my mouth. “Just like I want to hate you.” I run my thumb along her lower lip, whispering, “But you don’t.”
The way this woman kisses, her entire body participates, and everything outside of us might still exist, but it doesn’t fucking matter.
I trail my fingers along my skin, from my breast to my center at a punishingly slow pace. “Say please.” He smirks as he rocks his wrist back and forth, jerking himself hard and slow. “Please.” I let out a small moan—he did exactly as I asked. It’s an entirely new kink I didn’t know I had.
“I had always loved how these vibrant floral tattoos looked on women. I love how it looks on me now.” I smile. There’s no meaning around the flower or the color, only that I thought it was pretty. I needed something pretty at that time in my life when everything felt so ugly and confusing.
girl, that is a reason
“You and your sister have my whole heart. Always have and always will. And I promise that whoever I look at won't change that.” Her eyes water as she nods in response, and mine do the same. “I’m going to go with my friends. Is that okay?” “Course it’s okay.” I smile as she stands up to weave her way over. “And Dad,” she says before she walks any farther. “She looks at you too. When you’re not looking, she smiles when she looks at you.”
“There’s nothing hypocritical about loving the people in your life. You can worry about what will happen or you can choose to enjoy people while they’re with you.”
“What can I do to make this better?”
“I want to be around you. I like me more when I’m around you. So let me be around you, Peach. And we figure it out as we go along. Lean into what feels right.”
“Come back here. Let me kiss you like I’m going to miss you.”
“They told me you want Faye to be your girlfriend, and I quote, ‘our dad deserves to smile the way he’s been smilin’ at Faye.’”
The idea of wanting her and caring for her doesn’t make me want to back away, though; it makes me want to hold on and protect her. Spend moments and embrace all the uncertainty because it’s worth it for how good I’ve felt with her around.
“You weren’t supposed to be fun and sweet. And you definitely weren’t supposed to be sexier than you already look. And this wasn’t supposed to feel . . .”
“It was never supposed to feel so right with you. We shouldn’t feel this right.”
“You’re dangerous, Foxx,” she says with a lazy smile. I like how it feels when she says it. As if I’m the one who’s setting the tone in all of this when, really, it’s her.
“You smile and these”—she circles her finger around the dip of my dimple—“they’re your secret weapon, because they make you seem cute.” “I am cute.”
What choices exist when the end never changes?
“What-ifs and maybes aren’t reality. They’re ideas. And if we’re not careful and focus too heavily on them, they’ll make us spiral.”
“Tell me what you need from me.”
“Sometimes you need to make a mess in order to make things right.”
“I’ve been trying to save other people for so long—” Her voice cracks, and she sits back. “I didn’t know what it felt like to have someone look out for me.
I started falling in love with Faye Calloway on the edge of a cornfield, on a stage, over a bottle of bourbon, and every time she’s been in my arms since.
“People always think that you get one great love of your life, but I think whatever asshat said that never considered all the different kinds of love that could show up over the course of a lifetime.”
“I’m so proud of the woman you’ve become. The way you look dancing is the way I feel about training horses. It makes up a part of you. Not defines, but molds, and makes us stronger. Finding things that make you feel like the best version of yourself is the kind of life I always hoped for you. And private investigating . . .” She smiles to herself. “You’re a protector, a fixer, and that was bound to shine through somewhere.”
“We wanted you to be happy. You said that the happiest you’ve ever been was when we were happy, Dad.”
Kissing this woman is like getting lost and finding where I’m meant to be all at once.
“You show up for your family and the people you care about, and that’s always been what love looks like to me. You are what love looks like to me.”
Faye looks over at me, and I feel it—that sense of calm. That exhale of contentment that comes when you’ve made enough of the wrong decisions, but somehow find your way to one that feels right.
when I’m with him. Protected, worshiped, and so cared for. With Lincoln Foxx, it feels bigger than a simple word like love. When I’m with him, it feels like home.
“I want to do this life with you. You’re everything I could ever ask for in a partner, friend, lover. I’m obsessed with every part of you, from your perfect lips to your big, protective heart.” My eyes water, but only because I can’t contain how much this moment means to me. To be here with her and feeling so ready to make her mine. “You are so many things, Faye, but the only thing I'm really hoping that you never want to stop being is ours.”
“I couldn’t remember what home felt like. I missed the idea of it, but I couldn’t remember how it felt. The warmth of it and care. That fierce protectiveness of it. You’re my home, Lincoln Foxx. You’re the love of the life I’m choosing, and I’m so fucking lucky to have all of you.
