With Every Heartbeat

He didn’t return my smile. Instead, he seemed to deflate. “Are you asking if I regret us?”

“No.” I immediately shook my head, but then I squeezed my eyes shut and lowered my face. “I don’t know. I don’t think I could handle your answer if I asked that.”

He moved closer. I felt the heat from his body soak into me, and the warmth of his breath as he lowered his face to talk into my ear. Then I heard him loud and clear when he whispered, “I don’t. I don’t regret being with you at all.” He kissed my forehead gently.

Well, I had been right. I couldn’t handle his answer, even though it was the one I wanted to hear. Guilt, and longing, and love tore through me. I curled my shoulders in and immediately started to cry.

“But I’m her sister. Her sister.” I still couldn’t believe that part.

Quinn’s strong arms enveloped me, and he crushed me to his chest. “I don’t care.” His palm cupped my face and he led me to him, where I rested my chest over his heartbeat and listened to the rhythmic lub-dub inside him as silent tears streamed down my face.

I wrapped my arms around his waist and grabbed handfuls of the back of his shirt as he cradled me and let me cry all over him. He was warm and familiar. I selfishly gobbled up the moment, inhaling his spicy scent, memorizing the cadence of his heart, soaking in as much of his heat as I could steal. I loved hugging this man.

He threaded his fingers through my hair and shifted stray strands out of my face. “Better yet?”

I nodded against him, unwilling to break contact just yet. “Yes. Thank you.” I looked up and smiled through wet lashes, knowing I didn’t deserve such affection from him.

But he just kept on giving it, regardless.

“I have something for you.” He shifted, and I watched him lean off the side of the bed to pick up something from the floor. When he pulled up a familiar, tattered old notebook, my mouth fell open.

“How...?”

“It’s the one I borrowed from you, remember?” He handed me the only few short stories I had left in one thin notebook.

I took it reverently.

He sent me a sad smile. “And here...” He thrust a small thumb drive at me next. “It took me so long to get it back to you because I typed it all out. I wanted you to have an electronic file too. I kept worrying about fires and floods destroying them, but I never thought Hurricane Cora would the one to...well, anyway...I know it’s not enough to make up for the ones you lost, but…here.”

I couldn’t even accept the thumb drive; I was too busy bursting into a fresh batch of tears. “Thank you,” I sobbed.

The sweetest man on earth was sitting right here, letting me soak the shirt I’d borrowed from him to wear, and I’d done nothing but hurt him.

“I love you so, so much,” I babbled as I bawled, hugging my notebook hard.

He chuckled softly. “I was just going to say that to you.” Tugging me into his lap, he wrapped his large, warm arms around me. “Do you know how happy I am that you came into my life? It feels as if I didn’t really start living until you.”

I shook my head, confused. “But I…”

He kissed me, shutting me up. “I know there’s a lot going against us right now, but I don’t care. As long as you’re at my side, willing to accept me, I’m willing to work through anything.”

Love exploded inside me. “Then so am I.”

His grin lit up his dimple. “That’s all I need to hear. We can handle this, Zoey. You and I.”

I stood in the stands of ESU’s football stadium for Quinn’s divisional championship game and shouted with the rest of the roaring fans as Ten caught a pass from Noel and went in for a touchdown, tying the score up with our opponents.

“We’re going to win, we’re going to win, we’re going to win!” Caroline chanted, nearly squeezing my arm off as she jumped up and down beside me, screaming her excitement as well.

There was still nearly four minutes left in the game. Anything could happen. But yeah, I had a feeling we were going to win.

“Go, Ellamore,” I called. Our voices were flooded out by the other seven thousand fans yelling around us, but we didn’t care. It only made us scream louder.

“Wait? Why is Noel staying on the field?” a confused Aspen said from the other side of Caroline. “Shouldn’t the kicker be coming out for the one-point field goal?”

“Oh, shit,” a tense Mason muttered from behind us. “They’re going for the two-point conversion.”