He stopped beside her, a foot from where the sea met the shore. She set her shoulders, defiant, battle-ready.
“Okay. Tell me the plan.” Her words were loud enough to carry over the crash of waves.
As she hugged her elbows, Ethan was struck by the huge number of times in her life Naomi had had to be brave.
He wanted to show her that she didn’t always have to be the strong one. That if she let him, he’d carry some of the weight. No matter the outcome of this discussion, Ethan wasn’t ready to go back to his life before he’d met her, but something told him to wait out Naomi’s reaction.
What if the trick to reaching her, one of them at least, was just patience? Standing still long enough that she would grow used to him. That she would let herself relax.
“A kiss doesn’t have to mean anything. I’ll give you a get-out-of-jail-free card if you’ve gotten cold feet.” Her voice was softer this time, less sure, the statement almost a question.
She was offering them both an out, he supposed.
Ethan had no intention of taking it.
He moved so he was standing in front of her instead of beside her, so he could look her in the eye. The wet sand was cold under his feet, grounding him.
“Kissing you,” he said, determined to be explicit about it, “meant something to me.”
She sucked in a breath like the words had sharp edges. He could tell she wanted to move, to look away even, but she didn’t. “Whatever it is, this thing between us, it won’t be easy.”
“Whatever it is, this thing between us,” he repeated, “I want it.”
A shiver broke out across her body, and she moved her gaze to the shoreline.
“Yeah, but with me?” She laughed. Higher than normal. Nervous.
Her vulnerability pulsed between them, breaking his heart. Putting it back together.
Ethan brought his hand to her chin and redirected it, slowly, gently, until her eyes met his again.
“Naomi,” he said. It might as well have been a prayer.
There was a spectacular unspoken truth hanging between them.
That what they risked, their careers, their hearts—the ideas, so vastly different, that defined them—they risked for the potential of something it was too soon to call love.
“I feel like I’m falling,” she told him, her eyes wild with an emotion that might have been fear. “Not like in a romantic, greeting-card way. I mean falling like the ground is disintegrating under my feet.”
“It’s scary,” Ethan agreed. “But that doesn’t mean it isn’t right.”
“I’ve never done something this complicated before.” She let her head fall forward, against his shoulder. “I didn’t really mean to do it now.”
He kissed the top of her head, let his hands find their way to her neck, where her pulse hummed against his fingertips. “I’m not sure this is the kind of thing you get to plan.”
He tipped her head back again; he couldn’t help it. He didn’t want her to hide.
Moonlight hit the hollows of her cheekbones, the divot of her upper lip, her stubborn jaw. If they weren’t both barely breathing, he’d tell her how looking at her was sometimes so good that it hurt.
He knew in that moment that if they chased this connection, there would be no writing it off as casual. No “getting it out of their systems” or “seeing where things went.” Ethan didn’t know the right words to ask for what he wanted.
“I think I could be good at loving you,” he said, “if you let me.” Adrenaline raced under the surface of his skin, urgent and electric. “That’s a lot. It’s a big thing to say, and it’s a bigger thing to deliver. I promise that I know that, but I still want you to give me a shot.”
“Ethan.” She leaned her cheek into his palm, kissed the thin skin of his wrist.
Was she telling him to stop? Telling him good-bye? Her lips were just as hard to diagnose as her words.
He took a step back toward the beach, reaching for her hand, wanting space to think, to get the words out, but needing to stay tethered to her at the same time.