Page 98 of Best Friends, Tennessee

And I kissed him hard. I pulled him as tight as I could against me.

I broke off only when I desperately needed to breathe, and desperately needed to tell him the only thing I could think.

“I love you. And it’s really not casual. I’m tired of pretending.”

“You know I love you too, Finn,” he said. “And maybe that’s more important than any city or town I’ve ever thought would be my answer.”

My hands squeezed tight against his back. I was clutching him like I’d dissolve into molecules if I didn’t.

Like I was making up for years and years of lost time holding him.

“You can fuck whoever you want so long as you’re always with me,” I rushed to say, leaning back and looking into his eyes. “You can be totally free. I’ll be jealous as all hell, but I’ll let you do anything, Ori—”

He shook his head. “I don’t want to fuck anybody else. Trust me. With other people, I could only do casual, but with you… casual isn’t even in the fucking dictionary, Finn.”

I moved lower, kissing against the side of his head. “I don’t believe any of this, just so you know. I’m pretty sure you’re goingto have to wake up every morning and reassure me that this wasn’t a dream, and that you’re really still on board.”

“I know,” he said. “I can do that. Hell, I’ll even get up before six and come shovel horse shit with you, if you want me to.”

I laughed, exhaling. “No you won’t.”

“I might,” he said, a gleam in his eye.

There was so much of me that really couldn’t believe any of it. Couldn’t trust it yet, after years of uncertainty.

But another part of me?

Another part of me fuckin’knew.

He did belong with me. He’d belonged with me since the moment I met him, and he belonged with me even during all of the years where he was gone.

We just needed toseeit.

A low buzz came from Ori’s pocket, and after it didn’t stop for a solid minute, I nodded down.

“You need to get that?”

“I don’t want to, but I should,” Ori said, pulling out his phone and looking at the screen. “It’s Dani.”

I nodded. “Answer it. We’ll have time to, y’know, merge our fuckin’ bodies with each other later.”

All the time in the world, if you’re staying here,I thought, so giddy inside I practically wanted to jump.

“Dani,” Ori said, answering the phone while he was still in my arms. He put it on speakerphone.

“Stage five chaos,” Dani said over the speaker, and I heard the clattering chaos of the diner behind her. “I know it’s your day off, Ori, but Mary Ellen brought in a group often, and there’s this event across the way—is thereanychance—”

Ori gave me a questioning glance. I nodded at him.

“I can be there,” Ori told Dani. “I know how bad it can get.”

“You are a hero and a lifesaver,” Dani said. “I’m sure it’ll calm down in a couple of hours.”

After he hung up, he gave me a sympathetic look.

“I’m so sorry,” he told me.

“Don’t be,” I said, smoothing his hair. “I’ll come too. I’ll help field Mary Ellen. She always likes talking to me about the horses.”

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