I nod.

“But at the same time, I feel like I can’t. I can’t celebrate this, whatever this is. As if to be happy right now would be wrong. But yet it feels so right.” He buries his face in his hands. “I’m sorry, I’m not very eloquent.”

I reach over and touch the back of his neck. “I understand perfectly.”

“Before I messaged you that night, I was so conflicted. And now I’m even more so. I just don’t know if I can go through it again, the pain of losing someone I care so much about. But it’s nothing compared to what you are going through, and I feel ashamed for even worrying about myself.”

I have gone as still as a stone, fixated on his words.

“Say something,” he says.

“You care about me?”

“What?”

“You said you aren’t sure whether you can go through the pain of losing someone you care about again. Does that mean”—I take a deep breath to try to even out my voice—“that you care about me?”

He blinks, confused. “Isn’t it obvious?”

I shrug my shoulders.

He gets out of the car and I watch him come around the front, cutting through the headlights that are still beaming into the ominously dark day. The rain is starting to get heavier and it feels as if a thunderstorm is brewing. He opens my door and the cold air and rain hit.

“Shift over,” he says.

“What?”

“Move.”

I move over as far as I can and he hops in beside me, so we are squished into the one seat.

“OK, this went better in my head,” he admits. “Come here.” He half pulls and I half climb onto his lap, straddling his legs. He cups my cheeks and brings me forward until we are resting forehead to forehead, his eyes staring intensely into mine.

“Ava Green, although I suspect you’re being deliberately obtuse in an attempt to force me to profess my feelings out loud”—he narrows his eyes at me, but his expression is teasing—“I’ll allow it. Because, yes, I do care about you. I care about you a whole lot. When I’m with you I feel things I’ve never felt before, and although I’m reluctant to put any labels on it, or us, know this: I think you’re astonishingly, remarkably wonderful. I don’t want to stop now. I want more. More you. I want to know everything there is to know about you.”

I choke back a sob, caught somewhere between tears of despair and the dizzying heights of happiness.

He smiles and I feel the heat from his lips so close to mine. “Now, does that answer your question?”

I answer him with a kiss instead of words, crushing my lips into his ferociously, overwhelmed with the depth of emotion that his declaration has aroused. I lift his T-shirt up, our kiss breaking apart only long enough for me to lift it off over his head. He drops his hands to my hips, pulling me in against him hard.