Page 88 of Forever Only Once

Chapter 21

Hazel

I stoodat my front door, my hands shaking, but it was fine. I knew what I was doing. I could do this.

I needed to talk with Cross. I needed to ask him to forgive me.

Not just for what had happened at the cabin, or even for all the pain and blood. For how I left.

Nobody deserved to be lying in a hospital bed, only to be left behind.

It was callous, thoughtless, but I had been so in my head, I’d stood in my own way.

I hadn’t been thinking, not really. Hadn’t been able to get through my own fears and pain and trauma. And in the end, I’d left him.

And I couldn’t forgive myself for that. Now I had to beg him for forgiveness.

I let out a breath. I knew I could do this. I just needed to go to Cross’s home and beg.

Maybe even beg him to love me.

But that might be going too far.

The doorbell rang, and I let out a little scream.

Someone slammed their hand on the door, and I clutched my hands into fists at my sides.

“Hazel? Did you scream?”

Cross. Cross was here.

I let out a shaky laugh then looked through the peephole. There it was, his beautiful, bearded face. I almost cried.

Instead, I flipped all the locks, opened the door, and looked at him.

He looked healthy, and he wasn’t falling down.

He wasn’t covered in blood or attached to tubes or lying down, weak.

All the images that I had relived every single night for the past two weeks slammed into my mind again, and I simply tried to breathe.

It was hard to do when all I wanted to do was hold him and tell him that I was sorry and that I hoped he was doing well.

But I didn’t know how to say all that.

“Cross,” I whispered.

“Are you okay? What happened?”

“I was just standing by the door, and you rang the doorbell, and it startled me. I was trying to get up the courage to come and see you, and now you’re here, and I screamed like an idiot.”

Cross ran a hand over his face and then smiled, the relief in his eyes hitting me hard.

“Jesus. I thought you were hurt again. Hell. Can I hold you? Is that too much to ask? Because I really need to fucking hold you right now.”

We needed to talk, I knew that. We needed to do a lot of things besides falling into each other, but I didn’t care right now.

Instead, I wrapped my arms around his waist, careful of where he’d been shot, the spot that meant he’d almost died, and simply held him. His arms slid around me, and he pulled me close. I inhaled his masculine scent, the woodsy one that always made me shiver.