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“So…” she said quietly. “No Guardian Angel superpowers.”
He watched her closely. “No. Just normal Autumn Jones awesomeness.”
She smiled weakly. Started to speak, then gestured for the cup of water beside her bed. He tried to hold it for her and smiled when she batted it out of his hand with a scowl. She took a sip, then swallowed, passing it back to him. “Doesn’t sound nearly as cool.”
“It’s way cooler,” he responded. “But it wasn’t bullshit.”
She raised her brows at him in question.
“I think you did have Guardian Angel superpowers,” he said gruffly. “At least for a short period of time.” He set down the cup and picked up her hand, bringing it to his mouth and kissing the back of it. “You saved me.”
She rolled her eyes and he squeezed her hand, getting her attention.
“You did.” He turned her hand over and kissed her wrist. It was an act he had done almost daily, his lips brushing over the delicate skin as her hand had hung, limp and unresponsive. Now, her fingers curled around his, tugging, and the simple act broke a dam in his control. He swallowed hard, fighting back tears, and leaned forward, trying to hide the emotion behind another kiss to her wrist.
She had saved him. She had created them. She had wormed her way into his life, and then his heart, and broken him open in a hundred different ways. Gave him love and chaos and color in a world that had always been precise angles of gray.
She surprised him by patting the bed beside her. “Come here.”
“I don’t think it’s big enough for both of us.” His voice cracked, and he cleared his throat, fighting for control. She patted the bed again, and the look in her eye didn’t allow for argument.
He was careful, getting into the bed, taking the time to gingerly move her to the edge before cautiously climbing in. The minute he got into place, he gathered her against him. “I just want to make sure you don’t fall off.”
She didn’t respond, resting her head against his shoulder, and it was a good sign.
He curled his arm around her and closed his eyes, desperate to tell her everything of the last nine months and yet, not ruin a second of this perfect moment. “Did you know…” he said slowly, “that a lawyer in Toronto once fell to his death from the twenty-fourth floor of a building while demonstrating that the building’s windows were unbreakable?”
She turned her head, looking up to him. “I did.”
“Oh.” He sighed, crestfallen.
She gently poked at his chest. “You told me that.”
“I did?” He frowned, his propensity to collect useless death stories a habit picked up after she fell into her coma.
She curled against him, one weak leg wrapping over his, her arms stealing around his waist. “Can I ask you a favor?” she whispered.
He swallowed a thick lump that rose in his throat. “Anything,” he said huskily.
“Read to me.”
He glanced over, their paperback in its normal spot on her bedside table, his dry-cleaning receipt holding their place. Careful not to jostle her, he reached over and picked up the worn novel, flipping back to the first chapter and clearing his throat. When he started on the first line, she stopped him.
“No.” She ran her fingers over the spine, working open the book to the place where the receipt was. “Here.”
“But you won’t understand it,” he protested.
“I want to know the secret,” she whispered.
The secret? He looked at the book dumbly, the new release still topping the bestseller charts. She couldn’t have read it before, wouldn’t know about a secret unless… hope, that evil and cruel mistress, sprang in his chest. “You know this book?” he asked carefully.
She nodded, her eyes on his, the corners of her mouth tugging upward. She looked like a child on Christmas, one dying to open a present, their anticipation spilling out. “I heard you… reading it to me.”
He thought of the story of the lawyer’s death, her declaration that he had told her the fact. Of course he had, months ago, in this same room, to her prostrate form.
She had heard him. He blinked, trying to focus on her face, as all of the possibilities locked into place. His arms tightened on her and she wheezed in protest. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, planting a kiss on her head. “I just… do you remember?” He looked at her and her mouth widened into a slow and happy smile.
“Yes,” she whispered. “Everything.”
“So, you know that I love you.” He felt shy saying the words, his mind tripping through all that he had said, all that he had confessed, during these months.
“Not a big deal.” She lifted one shoulder in a weak shrug. “I’m easy to love.”
He chuckled, pulling her head toward him and kissing the top of it. “Yes, Autumn, you are.”
