hereliesdobby:

Aaaaaand we’re back.

“Your door was unlocked,” she said quietly, shutting it behind her. Tom held a plate in his hand, then slowly replaced it in the cabinet. He cleared his throat. Looked at his shoes. “You okay?”

“Yeah. I was…just going to make dinner. But, uh…I guess you want to talk.” Bliss laughed and shrugged, setting her bag down and going into the kitchen, leaning against the counter like she had never left. “Right?”

“We could eat,” she suggested, opening his fridge. Just like she had eight thousand times before. Just like she’d done so many mornings, getting up and wondering aloud why he never had any eggs. Suddenly, she shut the fridge and turned around. “I’m in love with you,” she announced. “And I really don’t think it’s fair at all that you and I keep falling in love with one another and thinking of it as some kind of enormous inconvenience for the other. Because it never was.”

“You didn’t really make it seem like it wasn’t.”

“I’m awful at this, Tom. You know that.”

“No. I had to learn that. There’s a difference.” He ran a hand through his hair, shaking his head. “I…I don’t know if I can do this again.”

“Just tell me. I have to know. It’s now or it’s never again, you know?” Tom sighed and nodded. 

“What do you need to know?”

“Do you love me?” she asked simply, reaching forward and holding his face in her hands. Tom let them caress his cheeks and relished in their warmth. God he missed those hands. He missed her and her stupid boots and all her records that she left laying around like they weren’t worth anything and those roller skates she never talked about and her midnight phone calls to people far away that left her crying some nights and rolling with laughter on others. He remembered the time she decorated his apartment with paper snowflakes in March, and the way she smiled each time he told some stupid joke.

He missed her.

“Of course I love you,” he murmured. And really, when he thought about it, there wasn’t a single thing, in that moment holding him back at all. Just himself. He pulled her close and kissed her.