Page 76 of Resilient Love

He reaches out to tug my bottom lip from between my teeth, shifting his hand to cup my jaw and pull me in for a chaste kiss. When he withdraws, he grips my shoulders, spinning me around and swatting my ass. “Go on,sunshine.Lead the way.” My heart suddenly feels like it’s bursting.

The thing about that damn nickname is that with him, I sort of do feel like the sunshiny girls I grew up envying.

I don’t have much time to reflect on that before I’m grabbing his hand and leading him up the stairs, careful not to make too much noise for fear of outing us to my best friends.

Once we’re in my small, dark room, I find my bedside lamp and illuminate the small space in a soft, warm glow.

Rafael peers around, refusing to let go of my hand as he takes in every detail from the small wooden bed frame with the baby-blue quilt to the matching chest of drawers with photos of my parents, Rachelle, and my friends. He picks up each photo, studying them one by one, silent as he continues on through every last one.

His eyes finally meet mine when he says, “You look like them, you know.” His voice is so gentle, and the words wrap around me like a plush blanket. “But I can still tell which one is you in these photos. I’d know my girl anywhere.”

My girl.

He says it as if this is our thing now. As if we’d solidified that as fact, and that I’d somehow become officially his. It should infuriate me that he’s staking some claim on me, but it doesn’t. Not at all. In fact, it has the opposite effect, making me realise just how much I want that to be true.

“I’m not, you know,” I say, peering up at him.

“Not what?” he asks, his dark brow with the freshly shaven line at the corner now arched in question.

“Not yours,” I breathe but add, “but I want to be.” I avert my gaze, my neck flushing with heat. “If you’ll have me.”

I’ve spent the better part of the weekend sorting through my feelings, and no matter what path I took, they all led me back tohim.

Yes, we’ve spoken briefly about wanting to trust each other with our hearts, and that was sweet, but we need a full conversation, and I’m ready to have it.

His large hands settle on my cheeks, pulling my eyes to meet his before smoothing them over my hair and down my back to tug me to his chest. He winds his arms around me, and I feel so damn safe in his embrace.

“I most definitely want you, Elise,” he whispers.

I hold my breath, my eyes burning as they fill with hot tears, waiting for the “but.”

It never comes.

“I know this wasn’t planned. Thatweweren’t planned, but I don’t think fate or destiny or whatever you want to call it, gives a shit about our plans. I don’t know how either of us is going to learn how to be what the other needs without losing ourselves in the process, but I want to figure it out with you,” he says, his words ardent.

“It’ll be a mess,” I remind him, but that doesn’t deter him in the least.

He just smiles and says, “A beautiful mess.”

My heart does this strange thing that I can only explain as cracking wide open after bursting at the seams, only to turn itself inside out and swallow me whole.Thatis what his words do to me.

I’ve never had anyone want to be a beautiful mess with me. Never had anyone I cared enough about to even want to try that with.

“We’ll work it out,mi vida.We'll take it one day at a time, okay?”

I nod but croak out, “But we have to wait until the season is up. Recruiters are showing up to our games all the time now, and I don’t want to throw the team's momentum off or act as a distraction. So we’ve got to wait.”

“Then we’ll wait. I have a feeling I’d wait forever for you, Elise. No matter what, even if you change your mind altogether, just tell me how you’re feeling, alright?”

“The same goes for you,” I say, pinning him with a hard stare.

“Of course, baby.” He buries his face in my head, murmuring into my hair and peppering kisses to the crown of my head before tugging me toward my bed.

We settle in together, and his large frame eats up most of the space in my small bed. After a few beats of silence, I take a deep breath and ready myself for the part of this conversation I’ve been most worried about.

“What are your concerns?” I ask him, steeling myself for a few heavy blows to the heart, but this is important. I need to know, even if it hurts.

“I just want to make sure you don’t hold back with me. I don’t know a lot about bipolar disorder. I’m learning, I’m reading, and Iwilldo right by you, Elise, but I need you to be patient with me,” he says, whispering the last words. “I need you to tell me what you’re thinking, and how I can help you navigate it because I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing, and I’m terrified I’m going to say or do the wrong things.”

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