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“How can you be so sure?”

“I know you,” he murmured, taking a folding yardstick out of his toolbox. He turned and looked at me. “I’d suggest we raise them up higher. Otherwise if you lean your head back, you’ll hit them. What do you think?”

I nodded. It made sense.

“In what order should we hang them?”

Looking at the photos, I tried out a few options in my head. “Kind of random, not in a row.”

Kaden nodded. “Why don’t you arrange them while I look for the right nails.”

Laying the photos on the floor, I shifted them around until I found a cute arrangement.

“What do you think?” I asked Kaden. He stepped behind me and looked over my shoulder. My heartbeat sped up.

“Looks good. Maybe a little more distance between them?” he mused. “The wall is pretty wide, and we don’t want them to look squished together.”

“I trust you.” I tilted my head back and looked up at him.

For a second he seemed confused, but then smiled, content. Then he got to work. He climbed on the couch and started hammering nails into the wall, while I handed him the frames. After checking with a level to see that the second frame was straight, Kaden asked me to hold the hammer while he took off his sweater. As he pulled it over his head, his shirtsleeve inched up his arm.

“Wait.”

The word burst out of my mouth. I stared at Kaden’s raised arm. His shoulders tightened, and he tried to lower his arm, but I grabbed him and turned him so I could see the inside of his bicep. It was fresh, black lettering.

Not broken, just bent.

With one finger I traced the lines softly. Kaden winced but didn’t move otherwise.

“What is that?” I whispered, raising my eyes to look into his. Kaden seemed almost insecure.

“Your words,” he replied just as softly. His eyes were dark and full. “The words that made me believe in myself again. The words that drove me mad because I couldn’t believe someone could see me the way you do.” He swallowed hard.

My mind went back to that day at the waterfall. To our conversation and all the hidden signals he’d sent me. To everything we’d confided in each other.

You’re not broken, Kaden. Maybe just a little bent.

“You put… those are my words… on your skin,” I blurted out, staring again at the looping letters. The skin under the tattoo was still slightly red and puffy.

“Everything about you gets under my skin, Allie.” Kaden got down from the couch and stood facing me. His Adam’s apple moved as he swallowed, and my gaze flew from his eyes to the tattoo, then back to his lips. “I’m really trying to take it slow, Bubbles. But if you keep looking at me like that… no guarantees.”

I couldn’t stop looking. I didn’t want to. Right now I had only one need—to show Kaden how much I’d missed him.

“Please, Kaden,” I said, my voice heavy.

A sound came from somewhere deep inside him and he pulled me close. His lips were pressed hard against mine, his arms wrapped around me. It almost hurt—but I didn’t stop it. He sighed as my lips opened for him, and my tongue slipped into his mouth. My legs sank but Kaden caught me, and we sank together onto the couch. I clung to him, put everything into my kiss: the moments of pain, of overwhelming loneliness, the joy he’d brought to my life, and all the longing of the past few days and nights. Everything.

Kaden moaned into my neck. My hands explored his body, and it felt like the first time. My heart beat wildly. Our kiss grew softer but no less urgent. Kaden lay me gently on my back, brushing my cheeks, my forehead, my neck with his tender lips.

“I love you.”

I froze beneath him.

“What did you just say?” I whispered.

“I love you,” he murmured. “I love you so much that it almost hurts.”

I ran my fingers through his hair and along his jawline. But as I began to tug at his shirt, he grabbed my hand and held it over my head.