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Even if it was the only time I got to say it to her.

But she didn’t ask for space. She didn’t push me away or keep me at arm’s length. If anything she pulled me closer. It’s like she knew I needed that more than anything tonight, to feel her with me.

There was nothing sexual about us crawling into bed together, her in my T-shirt, me in a fresh pair of dry athletic shorts that she had tucked away in a drawer. We just lay on our sides, staring at each other, talking about everything until she started to doze off, her eyes fluttering shut from exhaustion.

Despite the exhaustion that I felt—emotionally, mentally, physically—sleep evaded me. I couldn’t get my brain to shut off. To stop replaying the last twenty-four hours in my head like a broken record.

Trying to figure out how the fuck it was possible that I failed the tests, and how thankful I am that Rory stayed. That she believed me even though she had every right not to.

How I’m going to try to fix this shit and try to keep my spot on the team. My home at Prescott.

Rory stirs in her sleep, her rosy lips falling open as whispers a string of indecipherable mumbles that I can’t make out.

Except three distinct syllables.

My name.

Fuck, my girl is whispering my name in her sleep.

My chest swells, my heart galloping wildly beneath my rib cage. Sometimes I think Rory is the only thing I’ve ever truly gotten right. She saved me in ways that I know she couldn’t possibly understand.

I’ve been lying here for hours, watching her sleep, trying to savor every single bloody second that I have with her because in truth… I don’t know how long it’ll last.

I don’t know what’s going to happen. My entire future is up in the air. When I first arrived in America, I thought the stakes were high, but now it’s no longer just about playing for a professional team. It’s about Rory.

The thought of leaving her makes me physically ill. An entire fucking ocean separating me and the girl I’m in love with sounds like torture unlike anything I’ve ever known.

“Are you creepily watching me sleep, Cillian Cairney?” she murmurs, eyes still closed but her pillowy lips curving up into a sleepy grin.

“Of course not.”

Her grin widens into a smile that makes my heart race. As if her smile commands her pull on my heart, increasing the tempo with each time she looks at me. She’s so fucking beautiful.

“Mmmm. Not true. I can feel your eyes on me.”

My hand shoots out and slowly curves around her waist, tugging her across the mattress until she’s plastered against my chest. She heaves a sleepy sigh, burrowing into the crook of my neck, hitching one leg around my hip.

It’s perfect like this, wrapped up in her.

“That’s because I can’t take my eyes off you, St. James. Can you blame me?” I mumble into the silky hair on top of her head, pressing my lips there, lingering.

The tips of my fingers glide along her thigh lazily, spelling letters that I wonder if she’ll be able to decipher.

“I’ve been thinking. About everything from yesterday…” she starts, then pauses, lifting back slightly to stare up at me. Her pretty brown eyes are my favorite shade, darker in the morning when she’s first waking up and still sleepy. “I was so worried aboutfinding a guy who could see me for who I am, who I really am. It felt impossible, but I think that’s what I found. I think that you’ve seen me, for all that I am, for exactly who I am since I met you. The same way that I have you. I never saw you as a guy who could never escape his past, and you never saw me as the hopeless girl who would never make it out of the friend zone. Kinda feels like fate to me.”

I’ve never really given it much thought. Fate.

But I think she may be right. Whatever I’ve experienced in my life, the immeasurable hurt and heartache, the good and the bad, the pain and the healing.

Every piece of it must have led me right here, right to this moment.

“It does.” My throat feels tight with emotion, the same way it has countless times in the last day. “Loving you is effortless, Rory. I have no doubt that I was made solely to love you.”

Her eyes glisten, fresh new tears welling in the depths like pools. “I’m scared, Cillian. That you’ll leave, that we’ll lose this.”

“Hey.” I clasp her chin between my fingers. “We’re going to figure it out, baby. I’m not giving up. I’m going to fight, not just for myself but for you. For Ais.”

“What are we going to do?”