A small dark broom closet that smelled like feet and floor cleaner.
It was perfect.
“So,” I said. “Hi.”
“Hi, Sam,” he said, sounding amused.
“Okay, enough foreplay. Explain.”
“Enough foreplay? We haven’t even done any—”
“Ryan Foxheart, I swear to the gods if you don’t explain right now, I’ll do… something… terrible, okay I don’t even know what the hell is wrong with me. Oh my gods, explain.”
I felt more than saw his hands come to mine, squeezing my fingers. I could barely make out his features in the dark, and he licked his lips nervously. “It’s just….”
I waited.
“It’s just….”
I was done waiting. “It’s just hard for you to form even the simplest of words at a crucial moment?”
He scowled at me. “Give me a minute.”
“We only have four now. Morgan will banish me to Castle Freeze Your Ass Off. With Randall. Without you. What would I do without you?”
He started to smile. “Ah, that’s so—”
“I mean, there are a billion things I could do without you, but still.”
“—like you,” he said. He shook his head. “Look, Sam. It’s just… you know how important being a knight is to me.”
I nodded, because I did. For the longest time, it’d been the most important thing to him, something he’d been working toward for years.
“And the oath I made,” he said. “It was… everything. For a long time.” As it should have been. Because an oath to a knight is the promise of their life for another’s.
“I know,” I said. “And I know why you did it. I know who you did it for.” His mother, even though she had passed before she could ever see what he would become. “But I don’t—”
“It was the most important thing, Sam,” Ryan said, reaching up to cup my face. “Until you.”
And what the hell does one say in the face of that?
Nothing, apparently.
Because I was gaping at him again.
Also with a boner in my heart.
“I chose you, Sam,” he said quietly. “And I would do it again and again, over anything else. My duty and fealty is to the King of Verania. But my heart belongs to you.”
“Bastard,” I whispered.
He smiled softly, thumbs brushing my cheeks. “So I know why your mother did what she did. She made her choice, like I’ve made mine. Because I can’t imagine a world without you in it. And I hope I never have to. I would follow you anywhere.”
“I am going to kiss you so hard in a few seconds,” I warned him. “There’s going to be tongue and spit and everything.”
“Tongue and spit and everything,” he repeated.
“And you’re going to enjoy it.”