Her eyes searched mine like they were looking for lies. There weren’t any. I meant it with every broken piece of my heart.

“I want it to be you,” I said, my voice softer, but no less sure. “Always.” Wanting anyone else—the mere thought was laughable. If I tried, I’d be working against every calculation in my mind, every piece of my heart that had been rearranged by her.

She stared at me. Her mouth trembled. Her lashes were wet. Her whole body seemed to shake with something fragile.

I moved closer until our noses brushed, the space between us shrinking, the years of pain dripping off my shoulders.

“I love you,” I said it without hesitation, without fear, without any of the doubts that had haunted me before. “I’ve loved you since the day I told you lions don’t leave each other behind.”

A choked sound left her throat. “I remember that.”

Her hands slid up my chest, fingers curling into the soaked fabric of my shirt, tugging me closer until there was no space between us—just heat and water and need.

“You had glitter in your hair. Gold and silver,” I added, my voice quieter now. “I didn’t even know what love was back then, but I knew I wanted to stay wherever you were.”

Beverly’s mouth opened like she wanted to say something, but instead she kissed me. Her body pressed into mine as if she was trying to climb inside my skin and live there.

I cupped her jaw and deepened the kiss.

The water lapped against us, waves crashing around our waists, but I couldn’t hear anything except her. The sound of her breath. The tiny whimper that slipped from her throat when my hand moved to the small of her back. The way she whispered my name like a plea.

She pulled back, catching her breath. “Say it again.”

I brushed my lips against hers. “I love you. And I am yours. And when I say I am yours, B, I’m not speaking in poetry, I’m speaking in fact, in physics, in every universal truth I know.”

A sob slipped from her lips, but she managed to smile despite it. “Do you love me more than your books?” she whispered.

I laughed softly, brushing a wet strand of hair from her face. “You’re beyond the written word, Beverly. You’re the plot twist. You’re the ink that breathes life into the blank pages of existence.”

I saw it—the exact moment the words reached her, not just in her ears but in her bones. A single tear rolled down her cheek.

I leaned down, taking her lips in a kiss that spoke all the things I hadn’t found the words for—because some things, some emotions, could never be confined to words or phrases. Some things were meant to be felt.