Page 202 of While You Were Trending

He kisses my cheek, my jaw, my ear, fingers curling into my hair. “I love you, Ginny. Exactly who you are. Who you’ve always been. You don’t have to pick up after me or cook me dinner or make yourself learn to skate to earn or deserve my love. It’s just yours. It will always be yours.”

I bury my head in the crook of his neck, holding on to him, letting his words wash over me.

He sees me.

And he loves me.

But— “What about Alex?”

His chest rises with a big inhale. “I’ll talk to him.”

I shiver. “What if I?—”

“Ginny.”

My heart settles at my name on his lips.

“I know you’re brave. I know you’re strong. And I know you bend over backward for the people you love,” he murmurs into my hair. “But this? This one’s on me.”

“What if…” But I’m unable to finish the question.

I don’t have to though.

Declan knows.

“A real friend won’t tell me it’s him or you.” He pulls back just enough to look down at me. “And I won’t ask you to do anything that makes you uncomfortable either.”

“I can do hard things.”

He kisses my forehead. “I know you can. But you don’t have to do them alone.”

“I know. Mabel will be there.”

He barks out a laugh. “Exactly.”

I pull him back into a hug, and he tightens his arms around me, secure and warm and perfect.

I’m safe.

Safe with the best found family, and loved by the greatest man in the universe.

40

THE BIG COMEBACKOWSKI

Declan

“You don’t haveto clean your room for my sake,” I say to Ginny for the fourth time this afternoon. I pat the bed beside me. “The only space I care about is clear enough for my intentions.”

She plants her fists on her hips in a newly exposed area of the floor and shakes her head at me. “This isn’t for you. It’s like—it’s like my mess has served its purpose and now I need to clear it away. Andlook. Do you see this?”

I shake my head as she grabs an inside-out dress from the pile to her right. It’s ivory with spaghetti straps and looks vaguely like the kitchen curtains I remember from my grandma’s house. “I don’t think I see what I’m supposed to see.”

“I’ve been looking for this fortwo years.”

I grin, then try to pull it back in.

“Go on. Say it,” she says.