Page 127 of Midnight Between Us
“You awake?”he mumbles, voice husky and warm, still rough from sleep.
“Barely,” I whisper.
“Mm.”His lips graze my shoulder.“Then go back to sleep.I’m not done holding you yet.”
I smile into the pillow.“You said that four hours ago.”
He hums.“Still true.”
“It’s time for me to go to work,” I remind him.
“Don’t you own the clinic or something?”he mumbles, barely making sense.
“They’re patients.I can’t just leave them like that.”He slides his fingers along my skin.There’s no rush in his touch.No heat demanding more.Just a closeness that wraps around me quietly, whispering: You’re safe.I’m not going anywhere.
“You feel different,” I murmur, shifting just enough to face him.Our legs stay tangled.
His eyes are soft when they meet mine.Clear, in a way, they weren’t a few months ago.
“So do you,” he says.“But just a reminder, it’s been twenty years, baby.”
My fingers trace the curve of his jaw.He catches my hand and presses a kiss to my knuckles.Then one to my palm.Then to my wrist, lingering like he doesn’t want to leave any part of me untouched.
“I like waking up next to you,” he says after a pause.“Even more than I thought I would.”
“I like being next to you.”
He smiles.Not the old grin, not the one that came with cocky comments and unfinished promises.This one is ...so honest and not filled with fear.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he says, as if it’s not a question anymore.Like he knows I need to hear it.
“I know,” I whisper.
He brushes his fingers down my side—slow and quiet like he’s trying to memorize the shape of this moment.There’s a pause at my waist, the same way there always is.His fingers don’t grip or pull.They linger.
“You think Lyndon would be okay with this?Us getting back together?”
The question drifts between us—it feels loaded though.As if Keir’s been carrying it around, waiting for the right second to set it down.
I blink.Then nod.
“Last Sunday, he asked me if you’d made amends yet.”My voice feels smaller than I meant it to.“Said he’d like to see us happy.”
Keir exhales into my hair.I feel it against my scalp, warm and tentative.His chest moves behind me—tight, like something inside him unraveled just enough to breathe.
“That’s good, right?”he murmurs, but there’s a hesitation behind it.
“You’re scared he’ll feel left behind?”I ask, not because I’m guessing—but because I remember.I remember sitting with that fear as if it were stitched into my skin.That somehow, if I built something new, it would mean I’d let go of him.
For a long time, I tiptoed through my own life, afraid joy would mean betrayal.That smiling again would erase him.
But that isn’t how love works.Or grief.
“I used to feel that way,” I say quietly.“Like if I let myself live, I was choosing life without him.But Lyndon ...he’s had a happy childhood and ...he laughs and adores his parents and siblings.He steals cookies and blames the dog.He’s moved on, even when we couldn’t.”
I shrug.
“And if I ever find something good—if happiness finds me—I have to stop pushing it away like it’s a crime.It doesn’t erase him.It doesn’t mean I forgot.It just means I’m still here.And so is he.Just ...in a different way.”
