And the best.

“Don’t you dare,” he warned.

But of course she dared. She always had.

“He makes out with it sometimes when he’s feeling lonely,” she said, a gurgle of laughter at the back of her throat. “I don’t know how hot and heavy those sessions get, but he might have taken things a touch too far. Maybe Bubbles was traumatized.”

“Goddammit, Sophie!” He jolted out of his seat, pushing the wooden legs across the floor with a screech. “For the last time, I don’t make out with my pillow—and even if I were in the habit of defiling inanimate objects, I wouldn’t do it while my puppy was watching.”

“Oh?” she asked, head tilted. “When would you do it? In the shower? That makes sense. That’s where I like to—”

He took two long strides to stand before her, attempting to make his glare as menacing and outraged as it had ever been, but it was no use. He couldn’t look at her and feel anything but love. He couldn’t be near her and think of anything but joy.

“Since the day you entered my life, I haven’t known a moment’s peace,” he grumbled, though his voice was soft. “You’re the first thing I think of when I wake up in the morning and the last memory I have before I fall asleep at night. I picture you when I’m in bed and when I’m working out and when I’m driving my truck. I can’t hear the wind without picking up the sound of your laughter in it. I can’t look at Bubbles without seeing your face smiling up at mine. There’s a good chance I’ll never be able to shake you. Not for a single second. Not for as long as I live.”

She hadn’t blinked even once during his tirade. Perfectly still, she held his stare, matching it with an increasingly resolute one of her own.

“You’re everywhere inside me, Sophie,” he said, his voice cracking. “You’re everywhere inside this house. I did everything I could to scrub you away, but even though I washed my sheets three times, I swear I can still smell you in them.”

“That’s it.”

Harrison had forgotten that they weren’t alone in the kitchen, that his audience included Sophie’s sisters. To be perfectly honest, he didn’t really care. He’d hid his emotions for so many years, buried any sentiment that might cause his father to decide that he too would rather live his life without Harrison in it.

He was done with that. He was angry at his parents, scared for Bubbles, annoyed with Oscar, and unsure about the future. Above all else, he loved Sophie Vasquez with everything he had.

And he didn’t care who the fuck knew it.