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Holy fuck. She really was my mate.

“Because I love you too, asshole! I love you. We said those words to each other. They mean something to me. They mean everything to me. I didn’t have anyone in my life, until you two. Now I have both of you and I can’t go back. I’m in love with both of you. And you can’t say shit like that to me.” She was gasping after each word she said, still crying, until she let go, sliding down my body.

I tried to catch her, but her knees crumbled. She fisted a handful of my shirt and yanked me down to the ground. Tears were still streaming from her face. She didn’t care. She pulled me in close and said, vehemently, “You can’t act as if this can be here one day and gone tomorrow. Snap of a fucking finger.” She shoved me back and crawled on top of me. “It doesn’t work like that for me, you jerk. Mate or no mate, you’re mine.” She was yelling in my face, yanking on my hoodie’s collar. “There’s no takebacks. Got it?”

It happened then.

My walls fell away.

My fears. What I was protecting myself from. It collapsed and I saw her.

Her fear.

Her bravery.

Her aloneness.

How fierce she was.

Her love.

It was right there, right on the surface, and I had threatened to take it away because I just didn’t want to get hurt myself.

“Baby,” I whispered, lifting my hands to her face.

I cupped both sides of her face as a tear slid down.

Just like me. Just like on the football field.

I did that to her.

She said, brokenly, “I’m all fucking in. You got that? I’m all fucking in, too.”

God.

Jesus.

I had done this to her, but I got it.

It was her and me and Cassian.

She and I were two sides of a coin, just like her and Cassian.

He slid down to the ground beside us, pressing in. He sounded so exasperated as he said, “Can this be the last emotional breakdown? I mean it. I love you, Cole, and I love Lee in a hetero soul-brother sort of way, but I can’t handle the dramatics of this. We’re all in this together. Final. We’re in agreement. There’s no going back on this. Let’s just all be secure in our feelings and accept that someone else loves us as much as we love them? I swear the emotional trauma from both of your families is going to be my undoing.”

I started laughing first. Cole was next, sinking down on top of me. She reached for Cassian. “I love you.”

He patted her head and smiled back. “I know. I love you too.” He shot me a look. “See. That’s called acceptance. I accept that she loves me. You both need to work on this construct.”

I laughed, nudging his shoulder with mine. “Fuck you.”

“Self-acceptance. Say it with me.”

Cole’s tears stopped flowing and she was back to smiling as I was holding her. She looked up, that love of hers shining at me. My heart kicked in my chest. Is that what that feeling was like? Being loved? It was foreign, but I rubbed at my chest, now knowing what it was.

I didn’t want to lose it.

I touched her face, lifting it for me. Her lips were there, waiting for me, answering me as my mouth touched her. Damn.