Then the door swung open and the pugs burst out, a cacophony of barks and a blur of fur. Nash barely noticed. All he could see was Chelle. She had on a hideous Christmas sweater with a goat eating all the presents under the tree knitted in red, white, and green, her dark hair was going a million different directions, and she was gnawing on her full bottom lip while nervously clasping and unclasping her hands.

She looked absolutely, 100 percent perfect.

“I wasn’t sure you’d come,” she said, a smile curling her lips.

Relief burned through him, melting the tension stringing him tighter than a watch turned too many times. He was moving before he realized it, closing the distance between them. “There was no way I could stay away any longer.”

He cupped her face with both hands, desperate to kiss her, to pick her up and carry her to the bedroom, to do whatever it took to get her to take him back. But he shouldn’t, not yet. He had to fix things first, make her understand that he’d never fuck up again. Okay, realistically, he’d mess up again because he wasn’t perfect, but he’d fix it—just like he’d fix this.

“Chelle, I’m sorry.” He had no idea what he was going to say, but the words still came out fast and honest from some deep place inside himself that he hadn’t known was there—not until Chelle. “I fucked up because I was scared. Scared of losing you, scared of not being the one to make things easier for you, scared of who in the hell I was if I wasn’t the one who took care of everything.” His heart hammered against his ribs as panic and hope and a bone-deep plea to the universe had him on the edge of freaking the fuck out. “It’s who I’ve been my whole life, and I have no clue who I am if not that, but I want to try to figure it out. And I want to do that with you, because I can’t imagine doing that or anything else without you.”

The tip of her nose turned bright red and she started blinking fast. “Nash, we need to talk.” She stepped back so he could enter. “Please, come inside.”

It felt like he was going to have a heart attack, or his brain was going to explode with the effort to keep his damn mouth shut, but he did. He followed her inside the apartment that felt like home because she was there.