Page 121 of Midnight Between Us
“It was observational supervision.”
“Oh, that sounds official.”
“It is, remember I’m a doctor.”
He lets out a low chuckle that sinks into me, unsettling everything I’ve tried to keep in place.Then he wipes his hands on his jeans and looks at me—really looks.
“You okay, Sim?”
I blink, caught off guard by the shift.“Yeah.”
He doesn’t say anything.Just keeps watching me like he’s waiting for the rest.
So I say the thing I hadn’t planned on.“It’s been weird, having you here.Not bad-weird.Just ...different.”
His expression softens, but he doesn’t look away.“For me too.”
I glance at the woodpile, then back at him.“Sometimes I forget we’re not the same people.”
“We’re not,” he agrees.“But we’re not strangers anymore.”
There’s a pause.Not awkward—just full.Full of everything we haven’t said.Everything I’ve been too afraid to feel again, but I’m slowly allowing myself to dig out of the box I had buried into.
I shift my weight.“I don’t know how to do this.”
He steps closer, slow and certain, until there’s barely a breath between us.He stops just shy of touching—close enough to feel, not enough to have.“Do what?”
“This.”I gesture vaguely between us.“You.Me.The past and ...whatever this is now.”
His voice is low when he answers.“Then don’t try to figure it all out at once.It’s just as simple as being here, with me.”
He says it as if it’s really that easy.Like it’s not the most terrifying thing anyone’s asked of me in years.
I swallow hard.“You make it sound easy.”
“It’s not.But I’d rather try and fuck it up than not try at all.”
Something in my chest pulls taut.I stare at him—at the man I thought I’d lost and the one standing in front of me now.Somehow, impossibly, they’re both him.
He watches me for another breath, then turns, walks over, and props the axe against the stump carefully.His shoulders rise and fall once—slow, like he’s steadying himself.When he comes back, there’s something different in his eyes.
Resolve.
He stops in front of me, close enough that I can feel the heat from his body, smell the sweat on his skin, and the faint trace of whatever soap he used this morning.
“I want to kiss you.”
“Kiss me,” I dare him.
“I might not be able to stop myself this time,” he says, voice low, rough with want and warning.
My pulse stutters.I should be cautious.I should say something rational.But all I can do is look at him and say what I’ve been holding back for weeks.
“I don’t want you to stop.”
His jaw clenches just slightly.And then he moves.
His hands are on my waist before I can blink, gripping like he needs to make sure I’m real.He lifts me effortlessly, my legs curling around his hips on instinct.The breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding shudders out of me as he starts toward the house—his mouth brushing my temple, my cheek, the corner of my lips like he’s memorizing the shape of me all over again.
