Everything for You (Bergman Brothers #5)(97)

I run my hand along his arm, sighing happily. “Hmm?”

“You never told me. What does sötis mean?”

I smile. “Sweetie.”

He arches an eyebrow. “Sweetie?”

“Mhmm. And there’s a new one now. Hjärtanskär.”

“And what’s that?” he says, knuckles stroking my cheek.

“My heart’s love.”

I watch his smile unfurl like the dawn, glowing, soft, unrepeatable. I remember what he called me, the sunrise of his heart. I feel, in the deepest, most secret place of my soul, exactly what he means.





30





GAVIN





Playlist: “Tonight – acoustic version,” Lie Ning





“How’s the view?”

Shifting in the hot tub, I watch Oliver drag the glass door shut behind him. My heart trips. I still can’t believe he wants me, loves me, as much as I want and love him.

“Well,” I tell him, “it’s no textured ceiling. But I suppose a crystal-clear sky of stars will have to do. How about you?” I lift my chin toward his phone.

He grins. “Oh, I’m just still watching you on repeat, telling everyone at that press conference that you’re gone for me.”

I snort. “I said no such thing.”

“You implied it.” He smiles at the screen, hitting play, listening to me answer Colin from ESPN.

Following up on my answer, telling him I’d be settling down, Colin shouts over the rest of the press, “Where?”

“That depends,” I hear my voice say.

“On?” Colin prompts.

“Wherever the man I love goes next, if he’ll have me… If he will, I’ll be following him.”

Oliver sighs and sets down my phone. “It’s better every time. Though, awfully bold of you.”

“I’m nothing if not determined. I had a plan to win you back.” I grab his hand and kiss it. “And don’t you know, I was victorious after all. It’s almost like I have an incredible record for wins or something…”

“You and that ego,” Oliver mutters. Leaning on the edge of the hot tub, he sinks a hand into my hair and tips up my face for a deep, slow kiss. “Need anything?”

I pull away and give him a proper once-over, finally processing what he’s wearing. “Christ.”

“Sorry. Word is that God guy works in His own way and time. Which frankly has always ticked me off. Point is, I cannot fulfill your request.”

I roll my eyes, but clasp his jaw for another hard kiss. “Your swim shorts are heinous.”

“Aren’t they?” He smiles against my mouth. “I wore them especially to tick you off. Things have been much too amicable the past twenty-four hours.”

“That’s because I fucked the sass right out of you.”

A blush heats his cheeks as he sits back and folds his arms across his chest. “While there may be some truth to that statement, I would like to jog your rather selective memory and remind you that since I had you in my mouth and sucked you off so good, they heard you begging to come all the way in Seattle, all you’ve done is smile and look at me with hearts in your eyes.”

Except now.

For the first time since we tumbled into bed yesterday afternoon, there’s been something weighing me down. And Oliver knows it.

“You okay?” he asks.

I sniff, stretch my arm across the hot tub, toying with the string at his swim trunks.

Deviously tight and short, they’re an obnoxious highlighter yellow, covered in silk-screen-print bananas. I squint. “It’s like looking into the sun.”

Oliver barks a laugh as he brings his hands to his waistband. “Well, I guess I’ll just have to take them off.”

My hand lands on top of his, stopping him. “Not yet. I have…something I want to say first.”

“Okay.” He turns his hand, lacing our fingers together. “What’s up?”

I jerk my head, beckoning him into the tub, which has felt incredible on my back.

Oliver swings his legs around and sinks down beside me, sliding one hand along my thigh under the water, threading his fingers through my hair with the other. “All ears,” he tells me.

I stare up at the sky, those stars shining infinitely brighter since we’re miles from the nearest city. I smile, remembering that night in LA, the last time I studied the stars with Oliver by my side—the shower, our meal outside, his weird, lovely story about the Big and Little Dippers, telling me in his anecdotal way that I wasn’t alone, that there was something salvageable in what felt like the absolute wreckage of my life.

I wrap my arm around his neck and tug him close, pressing a kiss to his temple, breathing him in. “I love you,” I tell him.

Gently, he rubs my thigh. “I know.”

“I want to watch Rogers and Hammerstein musicals made into movies and fold your garishly bright clothes and kiss you everywhere and do dishes with you and tell you when I’m hurt and trust you not to think I’m a worthless piece of shit without a ball at my feet.”

His hand freezes. “Gavin, I would never think that.”

Tearing my gaze from the stars, I meet his eyes and turn my hand until it’s clutching his beneath the water, our fingers interlaced. “I know. But…it’s hard for me. To really know it, deep inside myself.”