He pressed his hands to his chest, right over his heart. “So I’m here because . . . because if I’m going to suffer the pain of you, then I deserve the chance to love you. For however long I’m allowed to. So that when I lose you, I'll have happy memories to go with the nightmares. Either way, you will haunt me for the rest of my days. No matter who comes, no matter how happy a soulmate might make me in the future, I will always have a part of me that will wish it was you.”

I just stared, my chest a hollow crevice my heart used to live in.

He stood up and crossed the room to stand in front of me, close enough for me to smell his soap. He ducked his head to meet my eyes. “So, let me repeat myself, in case you need to hear it again . . . I love you, Savannah Grace. And I want to be yours whether it’s for one week, one month, one year, or one decade . . . I want it and I’m done fighting it. I’ll let you think about it, but I’m here and I’m yours . . . for as long as you’ll let me.”

He reached down and turned the door handle, pulling the door open.

“Kiwi,” I heard myself whisper, staring into his green eyes just inches from my own.

He froze.

This was a bad idea. The worst ever. I would never recover from this. Being Cooper Bishop’s girl for now was going to be the death of me forever. But he wasn’t wrong either. I already was suffering. I already broke for him. Whether we dated or not, the end result was intense, suffocating pain. The only difference was whether or not we had happiness at all. He made good points. If we let ourselves love each other for now, maybe losing him would hurt less. I couldn’t see how it could possibly hurt any more.

I took a deep breath. “Kiwi,” I whispered again.

He gave me a soft, half-little smile as he reached up and took my chin between his fingers. “It’s up to you, ma’am. I will respect your decision if this is not something you can handle. I just wanted you to know how I feel.”

I reached out and fisted his shirt in my hands, pulling him flush against my body. “You just want to be happy together . . . for as long as we can be?”

“If we can’t have happily ever after, then I want to have happily for now.” His gaze swept over my face. “Let me love you. Let me make you happy while I can. We’ve both died and come back to life. We know better than anyone else how fragile mortality is⁠—”