“Hey, Gerard?”
“Yeah, Claire-Bear?”
“What’s it mean?”
“Hm?”
“Love?” Rolling onto her belly, she rested her chin on her hand and beamed up at me. “What’s it mean?”
Grinning, I copied her moves and rolled onto my belly, facing her. “It’s what the grown-ups do when they get married.”
“Hm.” Her blonde brows pulled together, and she licked the ice-cream off her chin before saying, “Hey, Gerard?”
“Hm?”
“Why do grown-ups get married?”
“’Cause they get in love with each other,” I explained, taking a lick from my ice-cream before holding it out for her.
“But why do they get in love with each other?” she asked, taking a lick of my cone. “Is it fun?”
“It’s when you live in the same house as your best friend, and you have babies and a cat—” I paused to lick my cone, before continuing “—and a big bed, and … ”
“And pillow fights?”
“Yep.” I nodded. “And you get to eat cake in bed with the same person forever and ever and ever.”
Her eyes grew really big. “But I don’t want to marry anyone.” Leaning closer, she licked my cone and smiled. “Except you … ”
Laying on my side with my arm around Claire, I pulled my mind from the past and focused on the present.
She was so fucking beautiful that it made my chest ache. Honest to God, looking at this girl for too long caused a physical ache to develop in my ribcage. Even the back of her head. That was all I could see from my current viewpoint, and still, my heart bucked wildly in response.
Even when she was sleeping, she dominated my thought process to the point where I couldn’t resist the urge to shake her arm and wake her up, just so I could hear her voice.
“Claire-Bear?” I whispered in the darkness, feeling that familiar swell of anxious energy building up inside of me. “Are you awake?” Of course she wasn’t. It was half past four in the morning, she was clearly sleeping like every other normal human, but I was selfish and needy. “Babe?”
“Shh, Gerard,” she half-moaned, half-purred. “Mm.” Shifting around, she thrust her ass against me and snuggled deeper into the mattress. “Five more minutes.” Reaching up, she gripped my forearm with her hand, nails digging into my flesh and then retracting like a little kitten. “I’m just resting my eyes.”
I chuckled in the darkness, knowing that she was more awake than asleep.
“Shh.” Twisting around to face me, she draped her thigh over my legs and snuggled into my side, using her cheek to nuzzle my bare chest. “I’m super tired.”
I smiled in the darkness. “Say it again.”
“Mm, say what?”
“Super.”
“Shh.”
“Come on, Claire-Bear.”
“No.”
“Come on, just once.”
“No.”
“Just say it.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s fucking adorable.”
“Fine,” she huffed, reaching a hand up to pinch my nipple. “Super.”
“Fuck.” I couldn’t stop the laugh that escaped my lips. “You’re super cute, do you know that?”
“I was five,” she grumbled, fully awake now. “I thought I was being sophisticated using the word super all the time.”
“Hey, the five-year-old version of you is still more sophisticated than the current-day version of me.” Grinning, I added, “You still make that tiny whistle noise when you say it.”
“No, I don’t,” Claire huffed. “That whistle noise was an unfortunate temporary side effect of losing my baby teeth.” Pulling up on her elbow, she smiled down at me. “See, perfectly formed adult teeth now, with zero whistling.”
“You’re so beautiful,” I admitted, because, one, I had a problem keeping my mouth shut, and second, it was the truth. I’d never seen anything like her. “I swear you shine even in the darkness.”
“You’re such a joker.”
“I’m not joking.”
She studied my face for a long beat, clearly searching for the lie before blowing out a shaky breath and flopping back down on my chest. “You are so frustrating, Gerard Gibson.”
“Yeah.” Swallowing deeply, I draped an arm around her and nodded. “I know.”
“Tell me a story.”
I arched a brow. “A story?”
“Mm-hm.” Nodding, she yawned sleepily. “It’s the least you can do considering you woke me from an epic dream.”
“You were dreaming?”
“I dream every night.”
Wow. Lucky her. “What were you dreaming about?”
“The usual,” she replied, cheek resting on my chest again.
“Which is?”
“You.”
My heart jackknifed in my chest. “Tell me about it.”
“Nope,” she mumbled. “You’re the one supposed to be telling me a story.”
“I can’t think of a story.”
“Then just talk,” she encouraged sleepily. “Just talk, Gerard. I want to hear your voice.”
“Talk about what?”
“Us,” she whispered. “Tell me all the nice things.”
“I don’t have good dreams when I sleep,” I offered cautiously, trying to choose the right words, something that didn’t come easily to me. “But whenever I daydream, you’re the star of the show.”
“I am?”
“Of course.”
“Keep going.”
“I have a hard time concentrating,” I offered, unsure if this was worth telling her, but she’d told me to talk, so I did. “But when I’m with you, I feel like I have my thinking cap on.” Pondering, I folded one arm behind my head as I tried to form sentences out of my wandering thoughts. “You’re the only person who can hold my attention. It shifts and wanders off on just about everyone else. But not you. Never you.”
“Really?”
“You already know this.”
“Maybe, but it’s nice to hear you say it.”
I thought about her words for a long moment before saying, “I love you, Claire.”
“I love you, too, Gerard.” A shiver racked through her. “A lot.”
