Page 115 of Middle Ground

I don’t even care that my words come out like a plea. Don’t care if that makes me seem desperate. Because I am. For Jackson, I am. I want him close—need him.

“Thank God.” He releases an overly dramatic breath of relief. “I thought you’d never ask.”

Jackson guides me onto my back, and then he’s hovering over me, smiling. I grin back, looping my hands around the back of his neck. And when he kisses me, Ifeelit—that thing I’ve been quietly searching for since I was a lonely teenager, drunk in a field. It fills my heart up until it overflows, and I sink further into Jackson’s embrace.

“I love you,” I whisper when we pull apart.

“I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that. But fuck, Meyer, I love you, too.”

He kisses me again, and I get lost in the feel of him.

“I think we should start renting the cottage out,” he muses. “Guests would love the secluded feel.”

“That’s a great idea,” I say, “except I kind of live here.”

“Not for long.” His eyes gleam with hope and mischief. “I have big plans for us, Ellison.”

The person I was six months ago would have picked a fight. Wouldn’t have wanted to hear him out because she was afraid of change. But this new version of me takes comfort in the fact that whatever lies ahead, she doesn’t have to handle it alone.

“I can’t wait.”

EPILOGUE

MEYER

“Honey, I’m home!”

At the sound of my voice, I hear a small mew, and then the ten-week-old kitten we found the other day, in almost exactly the same spot I found Fish, comes running across the room.

I bend down and scoop her up, cooing to her like I did to Atticus when he was a baby.

The kitten starts to purr as I hold her, kneading her paws against my arm. She’s much more affectionate than Fish. I run my fingers over her soft, light-coloured fur while I walk deeper into the house.

“Hi, baby,” Jackson says when I enter the kitchen. He’s standing by the counter, stuffing something in his pocket.

I lower Honey from near my face. “Jackson,” I say, “I didn’t know you were home.”

“You called out to me when you walked in the door.”

I laugh. “No, I called out to her.” I brandish the small kitten in my arms. “Meet Honey.”

The poor kitten has been nameless since we found her, but I didn’t want to settle for just anything. Then this morning while I was driving to Calderville, the perfect name hit me.

He raises a brow. “You named her Honey?”

I nod. “I did.”

“And why did you do that?”

“Because she reminds me of the colour of your eyes.” With the hand that’s not holding on to the kitten, I loop around the back of his neck and tug his face down to mine. “Hi, honey.”

“That’s going to get confusing,” he argues as his hands find their home on my hips.

I brush my lips against his. “Don’t care.”

He pulls me in closer, deepening the kiss. It’s been a year, but kissing him still feels like the first time, and I don’t ever want that to stop.

Honey mewls in protest to our attention being elsewhere. We draw apart, and then I hold the kitten up to Jackson’s face. She playfully bats his nose with the pads of her paw.