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Because no one had ever asked me that before.

Not likethat.

I took a deep breath.

“I don’t want to disappear again,” I said finally. “I don’t want to live in the shadows. I want a real life. Something I build. Not something I run from or survive through.”

His grip on me tightened just a little. “That’s good,” he said. “That’s really good.”

I looked up at him. “What about you?”

“I want whatever you want,” he said simply. “A house. A home. Somewhere we can park the truck and put up a mailbox with both our names on it.”

I smiled. “You want a mailbox?”

“I want you.”

The words hit me like sunlight—warm and gentle and blinding in the best way.

I reached up and cradled his face in my hands.

“I don’t know how to be normal,” I whispered. “I don’t even know what that looks like anymore.”

He leaned into my touch.

“Good,” he said. “Because I don’t want normal. I wantyou.Exactly as you are.”

And right there, with his lips on mine and the world going quiet again, I finally believed it.

I wasn’t lost anymore.

I was found.

Epilogue

Three Months Later

Jude

The house was quieter these days.

Not tense quiet.

Notwatching-your-sixquiet.

Just... peace.

The kind that lived in coffee cups left half full, bare feet on hardwood floors, and the low hum of a guitar playing in the next room.

Cyclone sat on the back porch, strumming something soft while our dog—yes,ourdog, a rescue mutt named Bravo—dozed at his feet. He wore his favorite old jeans, the ones that should’ve been thrown out months ago, and a plain white T-shirt that clung in all the right ways.

I leaned in the doorway and just watched him for a minute.

God, I loved him.

Not because he saved me.

But because he never asked me to be anything other thanme.