Page 39 of Brash for It
My lower lip trembles somehow still needing more from him.“So Lana?”
He huffs.“Lana’s right about some things.I don’t commit to lies.I don’t play house to make someone feel like I might change.I’m not a porch and talking about growing old man.”He steps closer, close enough that the heat off his body sinks into mine like a remedy.“But she doesn’t know anything about this.You.Me.The fact that you sleep in my bed with a key I want you to keep.Or that you ate cereal out of my ugly bowl this morning and I liked it.”One corner of his mouth tips.“She never met this version of me.She never had me because that’s not what I was to her and she was to me.”
The world lurches into focus like he just adjusted some knob I didn’t know existed.“This version?”
“The one who’s trying.”His eyes don’t flinch from mine.“The one who doesn’t bail when the restlessness hits and a woman looks at him like he’s an anchor in a storm.The one who tells you to make a list and then sits at the table while you do it.The one who wants you in daylight as much as in the sheets.”
My heart does something reckless.In this very moment, I fall inside.My heart swells into something I can’t put into words.“Kellum.”
He lifts a hand and tucks a piece of hair behind my ear, the gesture so careful it undoes me.“You’re not wrong to be jealous,” he adds, surprising me.“You’re not wrong to be scared.You got burned.You’re still smoldering from your life going up in a blaze.You still think it’s you.It’s not.It’s just what happens after a fire.You air out.It takes time.”
I’m crying again, quieter this time.The tears slide down without drama.“You sound like someone who knows.”
He half-smiles, the kind that doesn’t reach his eyes because the story behind it isn’t funny.“I know.”
“What if you can’t commit?”The word feels too big in my mouth and too small for what it means.“What if you never want that?Because Kellum, I know myself even burned I still want that in life.A partner, a lover, a best friend.”
He thinks for a long beat.“I don’t say anything I don’t mean.I can promise exactly one thing,” he answers at last.“I won’t take from you what I can’t keep.And I won’t keep you locked down.If all I’ve got is a shoebox of space for you, I’ll say so.You’ll decide if you want to stand beside me there awhile to see if space comes or goes or not.But you’ll always have a way out and you’ll know what you got standing in front of you.I don’t play games ever.”
It’s not a fairytale.It’s not a ring.It’s not even a label.But it is something.Dark, honest, and somehow what I needed to hear.
I breathe.It shakes on the way out.“Okay.”
“Okay,” he echoes, and something unclenches in his jaw.“Now, do me a favor and stop letting other people’s stories about me pick fights in your head.You want to know something, you ask me.Not Lana.Not a rumor.Me.”
I nod, a little dizzy with relief, a little embarrassed at my own spiral.“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry.”He squeezes my shoulder, then releases.“Be clear.All I ever ask.”
The room exhales with us.The fridge hum clicks into a new cycle like it was waiting to see where we’d land.Outside, a car door slams somewhere, the echo a punctuation mark.
“You hungry?”he asks, like we just tightened bolts on something and now it’s time to put the tools away.
I laugh, still pushing back my tears.“We just had that conversation and you ask if I’m hungry?”
“Emotions burn calories,” he states with infuriating logic.“I’m putting burgers in a pan.You want a fried cheese skirt or are you still pretending that’s not the best part?”
“Cheese,” I reply, and wipe my face on the hem of my sleeve.“Please.”
He moves to the stove and the whole universe shifts a half-inch back into place.I set out plates and slice tomatoes like a person who has things to do.It feels good.It feels like proof.
When he slides a plate in front of me, he pauses, thumb brushing my wrist.“And Kristen?”
“Yeah?”
“You’re wanted.”He states it simple, like he’s telling me the weather.“By me.Don’t get it twisted because someone else wanted a version of you that was easier to carry.I want all of you.I want to taste your good days and swallow out your bad as I kiss you until all you can think of is my name on your lips.”
The words land and sink, heavy and warm.I hold his eyes until I know I’ll remember it tomorrow.“Okay,” I whisper unable to come up with a remark.
We eat.The world doesn’t end.The moths keep up their bad habits banging into the light.The map on the wall keeps being a directional paper with a future awaiting another plan.And inside me, something fragile sets back in place like pieces coming back together.
The night settles into a softer quiet after dinner.Dishes clack and steam, then stack in a rack like soldiers at ease.He wipes the counter the way he always does—efficient, thorough, like mess can’t outrun him if he sees it.I dry and hang the towel and turn to find him watching me, not with heat, not with the kind of pressure that used to live in rooms with men who wanted the night to go a certain way.Just watching.Like he’s memorizing a picture he doesn’t want to forget later.
“What,” I ask, self-conscious and yet, warmed by it.
“Nothing.”He shrugs, a small tilt of his shoulders.“You look like you live here.”
“I guess I do.”
