Page 84 of The Way We Fell

“What about you?”

“Well, I’m a Katherine,” I sigh with an eyeroll. I’ve always hated it. I used to cringe in school when teachers addressed me before I had chance to request that they call me Katy. Only my grandmother ever called me Katherine. “Katherine Lee Keller. I hate it.”

“Where does Lee come from?”

“Mum’s maiden name.”

“Simple as that, huh?” One of Jay’s hands cradles my arch while the other moves up to my ankle, squeezing lightly and massaging the joint. It’s so good, it’s making me dizzy.

“Yup, pretty much,” I sigh, tipping my head back and rotating my ankle. “She has no siblings, no one to carry the family name. So, they gave it to me.” Jay drops one foot and moves onto the next, dragging another moan from me as his thumbs press into that spot just below the base of my big toe.

“You didn’t always want to be a therapist, right?” I nod before he continues. “What did you want to be when you were a kid?”

I pull my head forward, forcing my eyes open. “Promise you won’t laugh?”

Jay smirks softly. “Ye—no.” He draws out the words. “But I won’t judge you.”

“I wanted to be a train driver.”

“Get out,” he says, a chuckle barely constrained in his voice. “Iwanted to be a train driver.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, really.” A laugh bubbles out of him. “I wanted to drive steam trains. And then the tube, for a while. Do you know how rare job openings are for that?”

“I can’t say I ever looked into it,” I admit. Jay laughs, and I laugh with him. “I wasn’t great in school. By the time I was fifteen or sixteen, I had almost zero direction, got a job at Flaggs, and—well, I’m still there now. Sixteen years later.”

“But look at you, figuring out what you want from life. Realising dreams, chasing them. That’s not a woman with zero direction, Princess. That’s a force to be fucking reckoned with. I’m fucking proud of you, you know?”

I clench my jaw to stop it from dropping. Jay has said a lot of nice things to me, but nothing has felt quite so good as hearing that. That he’s proud of me. That he believes in what I’m doing. That it’s worthwhile. Tears sting at my eyes as my lips curl into a shaky smile.

“Thank you,” I whisper. “I’m proud of you, too, you know? How far you’ve come. How hard you’ve worked. I’m so proud to be yours.”

He dips his head to meet my lips once, twice, and then pulls back. As much as I could tear his clothes off right now, we both know this isn’t the moment.

“Do you want kids someday?” I flex my toes in his hand. He’s quiet for a beat, considering the question, before he nods slowly.

“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, I think I do.” His face lights up and something unfamiliar burns in his eyes. It’s dark yet bright, a million promises glowing in the blaze. I grin at him, and there’s a tug in my chest. It feels like a release—something that pushes me closer to him. I shuffle further along the sofa until it’s not my feet in his hands but my knees, and my bum is pressing close to his thighs. He pulls me further until I’m sat in his lap and he wraps his arms around my waist.

“I want a little girl who looks like you,” he murmurs into my shoulder. “I want a boy I can chase around and roughhouse with. And a girl with your eyes and smile.”

“That’s funny,” I whisper. “Because I want a boy with his daddy’s smile and a girl with her daddy’s eyes. Your eyes.”

He reaches up to cradle the back of my head in one hand, pulling me down to meet his lips in the softest, most gentle and languid kiss. The moment my lips part for him, he slips his tongue past my teeth, brushing it against mine tenderly. I shift until I’m straddling his thighs and he holds me in place, hips still, content to simply kiss me. And I return it with fervour.

There’s no urgency, no desperation. No clothes are being torn off, no body parts grabbed or squeezed. It’s just this: me and Jay andthis, this kiss. This is the kind of kiss people write about. It’s the kind I read in books. The kind I used to wish upon stars for. And now, it’s the kind of kiss I get to experience for real, with a man who walked straight off the page and into my heart.

“I’m mad about you, Katy,” he whispers against my lips. I pull back to look into his eyes, the brown and green mixing like springtime. “I don’t know how you did it, but you broke in and stole my heart. It’s yours, Katy. My heart is yours. I’m yours.”

His confession breaks something within me. Every last remaining boundary shatters and I pitch forward, sealing my lips to his again.

“I love you, Jay,” I whisper against his mouth as I break for air. “I love you so fucking much.”

He brings a hand to my throat, palm resting between my collarbones and his thumb on my chin, angling it up to meet his lips once more. His other hand moves from my hip to tangle in my hair and he tugs lightly, the sting of tension in my scalp setting my skin on fire.

“I love you,” he whispers between kisses. “I’m so in love with you.”

Tears fall unbidden and mix with our kiss as I laugh against his mouth. Held tightly to Jay’s body and locked in his embrace, I’m freer than I’ve ever been. I feel like I’m flying, freefalling safe in the knowledge that I’ll land in his arms.

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