Starting Back

by Stephanie Rose

“How’s the vacation story coming along?” I laughed at the arch in his brow when I opened my eyes. “Like a goddamn fairy tale.”

Knowing something wouldn’t last was different from hoping it would last forever and then it didn’t. Leo and I were on a new timeline now—and if I kept stalling, it would run out.

It was too early to say, “I love you,” so why was it on the tip of my tongue?

It was too soon to think she was the one, but it’d been too soon for so many things since we’d met.

Maybe the big moments in life weren’t supposed to make sense.

“You sure about that?” “I’m sure about you,” he said, sliding his hands under my hips and pressing me closer to his chest. “Any time I can get with you, that’s perfect.”

I’d lost the inclination to move from place to place because when I found my home, it was a person.

“I want to be close to where the woman I love is. That’s you. I may have come for them, but I’m staying for you.

“You are everything to me. I. Am. Staying. For. You. Am I getting through yet?”