Page 21

“Sure do,” she replied, sinking deeper into the couch, her body remembering the peace it had found there the night before. Her limbs relaxed, molding into the cushions like she belonged there—and then she hesitated. Something in the air had shifted.

The TV stayed dark.

Karen turned her head slightly, a question forming—then dissolved when she caught the look on Jett’s face. He wasn’t reaching for the remote. He was looking at her.

And not just looking —he was seeing her.

Her breath caught.

He was slouched down beside her, gaze heavy-lidded and soft, his posture relaxed, but his expression filled with something far deeper than ease. Tenderness. Wonder. A vulnerability she hadn’t seen from him before. Her heart gave a traitorous stutter, then thudded, heavy and full, in her chest.

“This evening was nice,” he whispered, his voice low and almost reverent.

“Yes, it was,” she replied quietly, mirroring his tender tone with a smile that came from someplace deep. “I really enjoyed getting to know you—and I think this is what we’ve needed.”

“Me too,” he said, nodding slowly, his eyes never leaving hers. “I think we’ve just needed to both stop moving for a second so we could push forward at the same speed, in the same direction.”

“Exactly.”

The words, the moment, the connection. It all settled around her like a well-worn coat.

“I’m glad you wore pink tonight. I’d like to think that was for me…” His voice softened even more, trailing off, but not before she heard it—the unspoken hope threaded through his words like he was testing the water with a trembling hand.

“It was,” she confessed, her gaze steady and open. “I mentioned the car door, and you did it. You mentioned this color… and this is me, showing you that I listened.”

“I love that we can talk and hear each other.” Jett’s voice was laced with awe, like the idea of mutual understanding still stunned him – and with his past, his father’s disappearance, Karen understood on a deeper level what this meant to him, to them.

“Even if sometimes it’s shouting?” Karen winced, the memory of past arguments creeping in, brushing shame along her cheeks.

“That’s just a barometer to tell me how much it means to you,” he replied, the corner of his mouth lifting, offering her a soft escape from her embarrassment. He was letting her off the hook—and meeting her halfway.

“I don’t like yelling. That’s not me deep down inside,” she whispered, her voice cracking slightly with the weight of honesty. “You have a way of getting under my skin, of reaching me, and it was frightening at first.”

“Not anymore?” he asked gently, a current of hope running beneath the quiet.

“No…”

It was a confession more than an answer—an exhale, a surrender to something neither of them had expected but both had clearly needed.

“Then maybe those things that mean a lot to you, you could just whisper them to me—so I hear you and can take note of them…” Jett’s voice was low and full of care, the offer landing softly in the space between them like an outstretched hand.

“And you could whisper to me…” Karen replied, her voice thick with emotion. Her eyes shimmered, not with tears, but with a depth of feeling she hadn’t dared to voice until now.

“I’d love that.”

“Me too.”

Karen sat at one end of the old couch, her fingers nervously picking at a frayed seam in the cushion. The silence between them was thick, not awkward, but charged with something else—something fragile and reverent. Across from her, Jett mirrored her posture, quiet and still, and yet somehow… not .

He wasn’t just sitting there—he was speaking , not with words, but with his whole presence.

His face was so open, so achingly expressive, it was like watching a song unfold without hearing the melody.

His eyes locked on hers, intense and unflinching, and Karen felt the impact in her chest like a struck bell.

Her heart was listening to his eyes, responding to his unspoken message with a silent symphony of its own.

She felt it flutter, stir, and reach toward him—drawn by the unmistakable gravity that had always lived between them, even when they'd been too stubborn or scared to give it a name.

Now, though—now they weren’t resisting it. They weren’t pulling away or covering up their feelings with sharp words or awkward silences. The current between them had always existed, but this was the first time it felt like they were letting it pull them closer and closer.

And she was doing exactly that… drifting toward him.

She didn’t realize she’d moved until she was a few inches closer to the center of the couch.

Just a small shift, a quiet surrender. But it felt monumental.

Her gaze never left his. And when she saw him mirror her movement, the corners of her lips twitched upward in something like awe and disbelief.

Their magnets were moving together. Those polarized personalities that fought against one another had finally flipped, pulling and drawing together to become this , to share this moment.

“This is better,” His voice was low, warm—like coffee on a cold morning.

“Much.”

“We don’t have to talk as loudly.”

“We could just whisper.”

Her heart skipped. It was such a simple exchange, and yet it felt monumental. Sacred.

“You look beautiful,” he whispered to her, his voice barely audible but loaded with emotion.

His eyes searched hers like he was trying to memorize her, capture every flicker of expression on her face.

“I think you are incredibly beautiful, and it meant a lot to me to see you when I got off the bus today.”

Karen felt her breath catch. The tenderness in his voice, the sincerity in his gaze—it cracked something open inside her, something fragile and wary but waiting.

“I think you are gorgeous – and it meant a lot for me to be there. I felt like your friend, your partner, your wife, for the first time since we’ve said our vows.”

The words came out shakier than she intended, but it didn’t matter. They were true. All of it. For the first time in so long, she had felt a part of something special. She felt needed, chosen .

“I was so proud to have my wife waiting – and that’s why I’ve kept asking you to come to the get-togethers and the meetings. I want my friends to see this amazing woman I somehow lucked out in marrying.”

She swallowed hard, her eyes misting despite her effort to keep them clear. His words weren’t flowery or rehearsed—they were raw, vulnerable. They touched something deep in her, something she’d kept hidden out of fear she was never enough, that all of this wasn’t real.

“I know you get nervous,” he breathed softly, leaning just a little closer, “But you aren’t alone.

I would never abandon you in some crowd of strangers.

I would hold your hand, introduce you, and show you off as my wife – and those other guys can look at their mediocre spouses and be jealous all night long of what I’ve got going for me. ”

Karen’s breath hitched—half laugh, half sob—and then a full laugh escaped her lips before she could stop it. It was disbelieving, almost incredulous, and she turned away quickly, not wanting him to see the amusement trembling on her face.

But he was already chuckling beside her, unbothered, amused by his own honesty.

“It’s true – those other chicks are mediocre, at best. I swear!” he teased. “I hit the jackpot in that weird little bookstore when I spotted you .”

When she turned back to look at him, the smile they shared was electric. It said more than any of their earlier silences ever could. It said I see you. I like you. I’m here whenever you’re ready.

“You’re sweet.”

Those two words felt lame, but Karen needed something to fill the gap because her heart was spiraling wildly out of control.

She hadn’t meant to fall—hadn’t even realized she was teetering so close to the edge—but the moment the words left his lips combined with this evening, these looks, these moments— everything inside her tilted and gave way.

“Only to you, Nutella.”

And that—that—was the moment her heart gave in completely.

Something in his tone, soft and reverent, wrapped around her like a whispered promise straight into her deepest, most vulnerable spots within her.

Like a dam collapsing, the water behind it rushed forth just like her feelings, finally free…

that was her heart, her soul, her everything.

She was in love with Jett – and perilously close to blurting out the words. Instead, she laughed, trying to ground herself, even as her chest fluttered with something dangerously close to panic and fear that he was going to shatter her heart someday.

“Why do you insist on calling me that?” she asked, the chuckle catching slightly at the end, betraying her nerves.

He sighed as if the answer was obvious as if he’d been waiting for this question for far too long. “Maaaan,” he said dramatically, rolling his eyes in a way that made her lips curve upward. “How do you not know this?”

“I don’t,” she said, voice quieter now, the smile still lingering but unsure. She searched his expression, feeling the sudden weight of the moment shift around them like the hush before a storm.

His gaze met hers, and something in his posture changed—subtly, but undeniably. He seemed to settle, shoulders dropping, breath deepening, like he was finally ready to say some earthshattering proclamation that had lived inside him for far too long.

She waited, her own breath suspended, feeling the beat of her heart echo like a drum in her ears.

He inhaled—loudly, deliberately, almost exaggerated, but it didn’t make her smile this time. It only made her wait harder, watch closer, feel deeper.