It had been two days. I was confused. Not with my feelings. No. Those ones were pretty clear to me. I was confused on how much I could miss someone. And it had just been two days.

Fabian had called me. He had texted. So it wasn't like we were completely separated from each other. But I felt guilty. So guilty. I hadn't told him I had met Cory. I hadn't told him much at all.

I took in a deep breath and picked up my phone. As soon as I was about to call Fabian, he called. The smile on my face was so wide it almost split my face open.

"Hello," I said breathlessly. I couldn't help but be excited. Fabian had called me!

"Denise?" he asked as if to confirm it was really me.

"Fabian?" I asked also, holding my breath. This was stupid but my heart was pit pattering so hard in my chest.

He chuckled and I found myself beaming for no reason at all. "How are you?" he asked and I sighed.

I wanted to give him the truthful version: I had been so lost and being without him was killing me. That didn't mean I wasn't fine. I was fine. But without him I didn't feel complete.

I contemplated for a couple of seconds before shaking my head. If I was going to tell him all that, it was going to be when we met each other. So I settled for the short and half true version. "I'm fine. I just miss you."

Okay that wasn't supposed to leave my mouth but I guess my heart was tired of listening to my brain.

"I miss you too. Listen, we've been in this limbo for way too long don't you think? How about we meet up and talk?" Fabian asked and I nodded before realizing he couldn't see me. Shame on my dumbass self.

"Are you free now?" I asked, instead of giving a direct answer to his question.

"Yeah I am," Fabian said, then catching on to what I wanted to say next, "I could come pick you up. And we'd talk."

"Okay," I said dumbly. "Okay," I repeated for some weird reason then I said a small bye and hung up. I took in a deep breath and let it out. We were going to talk. And that was a good thing. I just hoped the end note of our talk was going to be positive.

I heard a knock and shook. I had been in my reverie for so long that I hadn't realized how much time had passed. Luckily that I didn't look shabby so I went over to the door and opened it. Of course it was Fabian. We hadn't spent a lot of time apart but I had missed him. I felt like jumping into his arms but I wasn't sure how the gesture was going to be received.

But Fabian opened his arms and I precipitated myself into them, closing my eyes as I felt the familiar warmth. Then I gasped suddenly. I had been lying to myself. I didn't have any remaining feelings for Cory. I loved Fabian. I had been trying to deny it because I didn't want to be hurt again, I didn't want to take any risk.

But I knew now that risks paid off sometimes. And I had taken the first big step, admitting it to myself.

"You missed me?" Fabian asked teasingly, when I looked up at him. I nodded then buried my face into his broad chest again. "I missed you too," he said softly, then placed a kiss on my hair.

I smiled and we moved away from each other, but still holding hands to maintain some kind of contact. "So where are we going?" I asked.

"You'll see," he said.

I smiled at his cryptic response and followed him as he led me down to his car. We drove for a while. The first part of the ride was silent. And the second part was full of chatter. I think both of us wanted to distract ourselves from the elephant in the room—or the car.

We finally reached this beautiful field. I looked at Fabian with a bemused look on my face. "Why are we here?" I asked.

"I wanted to do something special for you." He took in a deep breath then looked at me pointedly. "I know I've not been the best mate. We started off on a rocky start and I got angry at you for things beyond your control. I am sorry Denise, truly. I promise you that I will be a better mate. I will anger you, I might be snappy at times. But if there's one thing you should know is that I will never intentionally hurt you. Because I love you. I don't care about who was in your past as long as they stay in your past. You're my future and I honestly can't imagine the rest of my life without you."

I was crying by this point. I gave up trying to wipe the tears from my face and I launched myself into his arms. Fabian held me and I didn't want to leave. I wished we could stay like this forever. But Fabian had other ideas.

He pulled me away from his chest and placed a kiss on my lips. Before he could deepen it, I whispered, "I love you Fabian." It seemed like that was what he had been waiting for because he kissed me again, this one passionate.

Our tongues meshed with each other, his teeth were knawing softly at my bottom lip, his hands were in my hair, my hands were in his.

We pulled away to catch our breaths then smiled at each other. "Let's eat?" I suggested, laughing when a pouty kind of look came on Fabian's face. "We'll do more of that later," I whispered with a blush.

Fabian smiled, then he picked my hand and kissed the inside of my palm. "I love you." I was never going to get tired of hearing those words.

***

Word count: 1025

So this is the end!!

I started this book on a whim in 2017 when my phone got broken and all I had was my computer and a lot of time on my hands. Took me three years to complete it and I'm not proud of that part 😹🥺

But still. It's come to an end. This book was not even meant to be a romantic book, Fabian was meant to be a side character. I wanted Denise to learn that she could love herself by herself. She didn't need a man to love her so that she could love herself. But man, I fell in love with the man

I don't know but I felt she was ready to have this chapter closed.

I hope you enjoyed this story and to make up for all the time I've wasted, I will write a bonus scene. But lmk, smut or no smut???

Vote please.

And I love y'all so much.

Essie 🌺