The Reality of Everything - Rebecca Yarros Page 0,70

tea, knowing full well that I hadn’t. Kissing Jackson was a religious experience. The man knew exactly what he was doing in that department, and he did it so well that my heart picked up the pace just thinking about it. If that man could rev me up using only his mouth, what would the rest of his body be capable of?

“Uh-huh,” she challenged, lifting her eyebrow as she called out my bullshit.

“None of that matters,” I grumbled. “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results, and I’m not involving myself with another heartbreak just waiting to happen when I haven’t fixed myself from the last one.”

“You don’t know that he’s a heartbreak,” Sam argued. “What if he’s the love of your life and you miss out because you were too stubborn to walk across the damned yard and talk like adults?”

That wasn’t possible. Will was the love of my life. Wasn’t he?

But what if he…wasn’t?

Damn, was I a horrible person for even thinking that?

“Morgan?” Sam asked, clearly expecting an answer.

I blinked, trying to recall what she’d said. “Even if he wasn’t a pilot, it wouldn’t work. The man is in love with his ex. Whether or not he denies it, I heard it in his voice when he talked about her. I’m not getting involved with someone who sees me as some kind of consolation prize. No, thank you.”

Sam sighed. “And again, you don’t know that. You’re assuming. We have so few chances to be happy. I almost missed out on my chance with Grayson because I was sure that he still loved Grace, and now I can’t imagine what my life would have looked like without him in it.”

What did my life look like without Jackson? My heart stuttered in protest, but I couldn’t trust that thing, anyway. I’d been through worse. I’d survive. What I wouldn’t survive was the moment he inevitably crashed into the damned ocean.

“That’s different.” I shook my head. “You guys are the definition of fate and happily ever after.”

“We’re the definition of a really good fight,” Sam countered. “Look, I know the guy lied, and if what you’re doing is punishing him with your silence, then I’m all for it. Make him suffer until you feel he’s paid the price for being an asshole and hiding his job from you.”

“Hiding his job? It’s not that simple.” I braced my hands against the counter as my stupid, foolish heart split in two, one side siding with logic and self-preservation and the other…siding with him.

“I know that.” She set her glass down and gave me the motherlode of all sighs. “What do you like about him?”

“What?”

“Humor me.” She shrugged. “What could it possibly hurt to answer? It’s not like he’s listening or you’re giving him hope or something.” Her eyebrows rose. “Unless you’re scared that talking about it is going to make you rush up his stairs and jump him like you did at the top of that lighthouse, which, by the way, gives that boy an A-plus in the romantic date category, I don’t care how pissed off you are.”

The uninvited memory of his eyes in the moonlight and his arms around me smacked me in the heart, followed by the way his kiss had robbed me of every thought except more and now.

“Fine,” I growled, ignoring Sam’s little clap of happiness. “I like that he sees me. Not just the shell that everyone does, but he actually sees me. It’s like the man has X-ray vision for bullshit, because I can’t fake anything around him, and in a way, it’s so much easier because I don’t even have to try.”

“Okay. And?” she urged me on, hopping onto the counter and kicking her feet.

“And I like that he’s a really good dad. Finley comes first, and he makes no excuses for that. His sun rises and sets on that little girl, and it might sound weird, but that’s ridiculously hot.”

“That’s not weird. That’s thousands of years of biology.” Sam shrugged. “What else?”

I tucked my hair behind my ears. “I like that he pushes my boundaries, though I wish he’d let us stay in every once in a while. And I like that he’s patient with me and so very careful, but he doesn’t treat me like I’m breakable or weak. He just treats me like I’m something precious.”

“Because you are,” she assured me.

I humphed a little. “I like that he thinks so. I like that he’s