Then I bolted.
Out the back door, down the steps, barefoot on cold concrete. I had no plan except to get to her, explain I had never stopped chasing her and never would.
She was on her porch, bending to pick up the keys she’d dropped.
“Bea!” I yelled as I ran across the street.
She didn’t turn.
“Beatrice!”
That stopped her.
She turned slowly, eyes wide under her bright porch light. She looked startled. Wrecked. So beautiful, my mind had trouble computing she was real and not some AI configuration.
I ran up her porch steps, stopping in front of her. Her keys rattled in her shaking hands. Finally giving in to my instincts, I grabbed them, holding them steady between mine.
“You said I stopped chasing you. I see why you thought that.”
She swallowed hard but said nothing.
“I thought it was what you wanted. Space. Silence.Antarctica.” My voice broke around the word I hated most in the world. Fuck Antarctica.
“Tore—”
“I want you. Still. Always. If you need time, I’ll give it to you. But don’t mistake my silence for indifference. Don’t ever think I gave up on you.”
Her breath caught. “You wouldn’t look at me.”
I shook my head. “Icouldn’t.”
“Why not?”
I brought her hands to my chest, over my thundering heart. “Feel that? That’s all the time when I’m with you. When I can’t touch you, it physically hurts.”
Her tongue darted out, wetting her bottom lip. “I safe worded you.”
“You did.”
“And all this time, you were honoringAntarctica.”
I nodded. “Yes.”
She squeezed her eyes shut. “I should have known. I didn’t even think—” Her eyes were wet when they opened and found mine. “I’m sorry, Salvatore. I made a mistake. What’s the opposite of Antarctica?”
“Death Valley.”
Her lips twitched into a half-smile. “Of course you’d know that.” She took a shaky breath. “Okay then. Death Valley.”
Then she was moving, straight into me. Hands fisting in my shirt, face buried in my chest like it was the only place she could catch her breath. I wrapped my arms around her so tightly I thought I might never let go.
“I didn’t know how to ask you to come back.”
“You don’t have to ask,” I murmured against her hair. “And I was never leaving.”
Chapter Thirty-nine
Bea
