Within seconds, my heart filled with more love than I had thought possible.
Because that was the thing about hearts—when you thought they were completely full, you somehow found room to add a little more love.
Loving Lucy Hope Palmer wasn’t a choice; it was my destiny.
The rest of the ceremony ran smoothly. The evening was filled with love, laughter, and light—and dancing. So much dancing.
When a slow song came on, Mary walked over to me and held her hand out, asking me for a dance. I stood up and walked her to the dance floor. As she placed her hand on my shoulder, we started to sway.
“What you did for Karla…I’ll never be able to thank you enough for that,” Mary said, a tear rolling down her cheek.
I leaned in and kissed her tear away before it could hit the floor. “Anything you ladies need, I am here for you. Always, Mary. Always.”
She smiled and nodded. “I always wanted a son.”
“I always wanted a mom.”
We danced, and she laid her head against my shoulder, allowing me to guide our moves. “The way you look at her,” she said, speaking of Lucy. “The way she looks at you…”
“I know.”
“Let her in, my dear. She makes you feel the way Ollie made me feel—whole—and a love like that isn’t something one should ever pass up. There might be a million reasons why you think it couldn’t work, but all you need is one reason why it could. That reason is love.”
I knew she was right about Lucy and love.
If love were a person, it would be her.
When our dance finished, Mary kissed my cheek and said, “Tell her. Tell her everything that scares you, everything that excites you, everything that moves you. Tell her all of it and let her in. I promise every moment will be worth it.”
I thanked her and took a breath as I turned around to see Lucy finishing up a dance with one of the older gentlemen in his seventies. I could hear Professor Oliver in my head, and I could feel him in my heart as it beat.
Be brave, Graham.
I met her at our table, and she sat down, beaming with happiness. It was as if happiness was the only mode she knew.
“Thank you for bringing me, Graham. This has been—”
I cut her off. There wasn’t a chance that I could wait one more minute. I couldn’t waste another second of time where my lips weren’t against hers. My mouth crashed into hers, making my mind swirl as I felt her lips on mine. I felt her entire being wrapping around my soul, soaking me in, changing me into a better man than I’d ever thought I could be. I’d died a million deaths before I gave living a chance, and my first breath of life was taken from her lips.
As I pulled away a bit, my hands stayed resting around her neck as my fingers slightly massaged her neck. “It’s you,” I whispered, our lips still slightly touching. “My greatest hope is, and always will be, you.”
And then, she kissed me back.
We didn’t know how to act with one another after our first kiss. Our situation wasn’t the norm when it came to building a relationship. We did everything backward. I fell in love with a boy before our first kiss, and he fell for a girl who he wasn’t allowed to have. Our connection, our heartbeats, matched one another in our fairytale world, but in reality, society deemed us as an awful accident.
Maybe we were an accident—a mistake.
Maybe we were never supposed to cross each other’s paths.
Maybe he was only meant to be a lesson in life and not a permanent mark.
But still, the way he kissed me…
Our kiss was as if heaven and hell collided together, and each choice was right and wrong at the same exact time. We kissed as if we were making a mistake and the best decision all at once. His lips made me float higher, yet somehow descend. His breaths somehow made my heart beat faster as it came to a complete halt.
Our love was everything good and bad wrapped in one kiss.
A part of me knew I should’ve regretted it, but the way his lips warmed up the cold shadows of my soul…the way he left his mark on me…
I’d never regret finding him, holding him, even if we only had those few seconds as one.
He’d always be worth those tiny seconds we shared.
He’d always be worth that soul-connecting feeling we created when our lips touched.
He’d always be the one I spent my nights dreaming of being near.
He’d always be worth it to me.
Sometimes when your heart wanted a full-length novel, the world only gave you a novella, and sometimes when you wanted forever you only had those few seconds of now.
And all I could do, all anyone could ever do, was make each moment count.
After we went home that night, we didn’t talk about it at all. Not the following week, either. I focused on Talon. Graham worked on his novel. I believed both of us were waiting for the right time to come up for us to speak about it, but that was the tricky thing about timing: it was never right.