“Your dad just threw down and I just laid it out,” Shy started when I didn’t speak. “Now’s the time to share, Tabby.”“I love you,” I whispered. “Good, but don’t say that shit to me three feet away. Get the fuck over here.”I launched off on a foot, took one step and flew through the air. Shy, as he’d been doing awhile, caught me. I wrapped my limbs around him and looked down in his beautiful green eyes. “I love you,” I whispered again.”

“Love you, Tabby." Oh yes. I pressed the insides of my thighs to his hips, wrapped my arms tight around him, and whispered in his ear, "Love you too, Shy." His mouth moved below my ear and he murmured against my skin, "Everything to me.”

“Shy, she’s yours, that’s what you say. Control your woman,” High demanded. “Get her ass out.”My eyes went to Shy to see him looking at High, and he wasn’t looking pissed. He was looking reflective. Then he said, “Tab and I don’t play it that way. You wanna order your old lady around, do what you do, not for me to say. I asked her to go, she didn’t go. Not gonna make her. But you try, you’ll deal with me.”God, I loved my guy.”

“Tabby, love you, honey but you’re kinda freakin’ me out,” Shy admitted.“I don’t know what to do,” I confessed.“About what?”“Being this happy.”Then he said, his voice rough, “Start now.”“Pardon?” I asked.“Start now,” he repeated.“Shy – ““Start now, Tabitha. Start gettin’ used to it.”

“You love me?” I whispered. He turned slowly to me and the muscle in his jaw kept ticking until his eyes locked on mine. “You lost that guy, respect, you found the strength to carry on. Know this, Tabby, I lost you, it would be sixty years of goin’ through the motions. I know that in my dick. I know it in my gut. I know it in my heart. I know it deep down in my goddamned soul.”

“Beauty,” he whispered. “What?” I asked.“Beauty. It’s pure beauty you don’t wanna be away from me. I don’t like that, baby. I love it”

“When we moved me in and I fretfully shared this with him, he pulled me loosely in his arms, dipped his face close and told me, “This décor isn’t mine either. It’s Ma’s. Do what you want. Anything you want. I don’t give a fuck. Just as long as you’re happy here.”I’d be happy on a deserted island that had nothing but a palm tree and a lifetime supply of sunscreen as long as Chace was there. And it was because of statements just like that I would.I didn’t tell him that.I just whispered, “Okay.”