Page 72 of Honeyfires

"Rodriguez made it an order."

"An order to love me?" She giggled.

"An order not to screw it up."

She continued laughing, uninterrupted, full and real, tears still on her cheeks, and then she was in my arms and I was holding her, both of us a little undone and not minding it at all. She pressed her face against my neck and said it again, quietly, like she was testing the weight of it now that it didn't have to be held back anymore.

"I love you."

"Again," I said.

"I love you, Petra." She pulled back to look at me, her eyes wet, shining. "Say it back."

"I love you," I said. "I've been trying to say it since the grocery store."

"That was weeks ago."

"I know. Maybe it started earlier than that."

"How much earlier?"

I thought about the cookie afternoon. The sewing morning. The dish towel. "Embarrassingly earlier."

"How embarrassingly?"

"Vera."

"Tell me."

"The Le Guin section? Vera, I don't know. Maybe even before that."

She stared at me. Then she covered her face with both hands, and I could see her smile even through them. "You've been in love with me since the beginning?"

"Since approximately the first time you Dewey Decimaled me. Maybe before. The hallway is a strong contender."

She made a sound I'd never heard before, a half-laugh, half-sob, completely genuine, and then her hands dropped and she was looking at me with the most open expression I'd ever seen on her face. No composure, nothing held back at all. Just Vera. Just this.

Just us. In love.

"You held all of that," she said softly, "for months."

"I was afraid," I admitted.

"Petra Alves." She shook her head slowly, fond exasperation in every delicate line and curve of her face. "You rappel out of helicopters."

"That's professionally sanctioned fear management. This was different."

She kissed me. I kissed her back, and tried to put everything into it. All the weeks of almost-saying-it, all the Post-its and emoji systems and cookie afternoons and nightmares she'd held me through and birthday cakes driven across town and notes tucked in gear bags and three crossed-out letters I'd been carrying in my wallet.

I lo…

When she finally pulled back, her eyes were dark but decided.

"My turn," she said.

"Vera, you don't have to—"

"I want to." She pressed me gently back against the pillows, and there was such tenderness in her face that further argument became impossible. "Let me love you."