strong and solid and not fall apart in front of anyone else.
And Heath probably needed space after the way I’d treated him.
But a big part of me thought maybe I’d driven him away entirely. After all those weeks of carefully keeping boundaries in place, letting him know what I wanted—after all the importance I’d placed on communication—I’d just fucking sent him away without any explanation. How could he fucking trust me again after that? He’d been in that burning building right next to me, and I’d acted like he didn’t have a right to keep standing with me once we made it out.
He had no reason to give me the time of day if I called him and asked him to come back. I didn’t deserve that—not when I was the one who was supposed to be in control, who was supposed to act as the stabilizing force for both of us, the one who he could lean on, depend on.
And now, after a week of misery, it was clear that I needed him.
It was clear that I loved him, even though I’d never told him. Why had I never told him? Was I afraid of losing him, of pushing him too far? Of getting my heart broken again? Because I’d pulled that off just fine in the end anyway. And I had no one to blame but myself.
Rebuilding Stella’s without Heath’s sweet, quiet, grounding support felt like an insurmountable task. But I didn’t know how to ask for that. I’d spent my entire adult life trying to be the man that others relied on, the lover who could lead the relationship, the VP that my club deserved. Admitting that I needed someone else to hold me up felt terrifying, and too much like failure. So I just kept putting it off, holing up in my room and overworking all my bread dough instead of calling Heath again like I should have.
And I’d overworked my bread dough again. I sighed and placed the dough into the warm oven to proof, and then surveyed the damage. My kitchen was a mess—more mess than I ever made at Stella’s. There was flour all over the kitchen island, the floor, and me. I grabbed a handful of the chocolate chips from the bowl I’d set on the island to use in the babka and popped a few into my mouth. I’d clean up later. Likely I’d just mess it up again with my next distraction project, so what was the point, anyway?
I stripped my shirt overhead and tossed it aside and headed to the bathroom. Maybe a shower would clear my head.
But a knock on the door made me pause. Before I could answer, it swung open.
“Hey,” a familiar voice said. “We need to talk.”
Heath stood in the doorway. My stomach swooped at the sight of him, like cresting a hill on my bike and starting the descent. Anticipation, joy, a thread of fear.
He looked as gorgeous as ever, and more than a little frustrated, his cheeks flushed from the ride over and his blond hair flattened from his helmet. But his brown eyes were determined when they fixed on me, and he shut the door behind him.
His gaze lingered on mine, and then traveled slowly down to my bare chest and my forearms that were still dusted with flour. Then there wasn’t simply determination in his eyes—there was heat, too. Focused and fiery.
I’d never seen him like this. It was a little bit thrilling.
And God, I’d missed him. I wanted nothing more than to gather him into my arms and kiss him senseless, but there was so fucking much I needed to say to him first. Everything was jumbled in my mind, though, the pain of the loss and the regret and the guilt and the love all folding over onto each other so I couldn’t seem to string a sentence together.
Apparently I didn’t have to, though, because suddenly Heath was rushing across the room. He flung his arms around my neck and kissed me—a searing kiss, a kiss that left me breathless. My hands fell automatically to his hips, because they belonged there.
I broke the kiss and tipped my forehead against his, panting. “Heath,” I murmured. “We should talk.”
Heath rested his hands on my shoulders, pressing his fingers into the muscle there, a pressure that made me bite back a moan.
“Do you want me?” he asked against my lips.
“God, yes,” I said, not quite sure where he was going with this.