Submitting to my Ex Uncle Chapter 62

Music Recomndation: Photograph by Ed Sheeran

......

I love you!

Her eyes widened. Her lips parted like she’d forgotten how to breathe.

Dominic didn’t stop. He couldn’t. It was like the words had been rotting in his chest for too long, and now that they were out, there was no putting them back.

"It’s ruining my life not being able to say it," he whispered. "I walk around like I’m okay, but I’m not. I haven’t been since you touched the first ti like I wasn’t already broken. Since you made laugh when I didn’t even rember how my voice sounded when it was happy. I haven’t been okay since you looked at like I wasn’t just another monster trying to outrun his past."

Celeste’s chest rose, sharp and shaky. Her hand found his wrist, curled lightly around it. She didn’t know what to say. She tried to play it cool, but she knew she also needed him the way he needs her.

"You’re the closest to heaven that I’ll ever be," he breathed. "And I’m terrified of touching you too hard in case you disappear."

Silence hung between them.

And then—

Celeste moved. Slowly, she leaned into his hand, pressing her face into his palm like she was lting into it. Her lashes dipped, her eyes glossy.

"I didn’t expect you to say that," she whispered.

"I know."

"I thought I was the only one feeling like the world would stop if you ever left."

Dominic exhaled sharply.

She gave a breathy laugh, but it broke into sothing softer. It sounded like a laugh between a sob.

Dominic didn’t push. He didn’t try to hold her tighter or steal the mont. He let her stay there, quiet against him, as the cetery held them in an odd cocoon of stillness.

"You know," she said at last, lifting her face just enough to et his gaze, "when I drove here this morning, I wasn’t sure I could go through with it. I told myself if I turned at the gas station, I’d take it as a sign. But I didn’t. I drove straight."

Dominic’s lips twitched. "You were going to let a gas station decide your fate?" He laughed. His smile was so wide that the corners of his eyes crinkled.

She smiled. "I was scared."

Dominic smiled. He pulled her into his arms without another word. She didn’t say it back, but that didn’t count. What mattered was that he finally let it off his chest without scaring her away.

Dominic held her close, his fingers slowly brushing up and down her spine as if morizing her shape. He wanted this mont to stretch a little longer.

"I’ve never thought about coming here. Not to ntion coming around with soone," she murmured into his chest, voice muffled.

She rember telling Amara she didn’t know where her mother was buried, just to avoid the conversation.

"I figured," he said gently, not moving. "It’s not exactly a place people share unless they an it."

He leaned back, just enough to look at her face, and to study the curve of her jaw and the way her eyes lingered near the gravestone as though still unsure if this counted as goodbye, or sothing else.

"I think she would’ve liked you," Celeste said, brushing a lock of his hair behind his ear. Her voice was lighter now, but her eyes weren’t.

Dominic tilted his head. "Really?"

The thought of soone else except his mother liking him blew him off. He didn’t even dare imagine Celeste ever will.

She nodded. "You’re quiet and intense. Kind of intimidating, in a way she would’ve enjoyed teasing about."

He chuckled softly.

"But mostly," Celeste added, "you’re... gentle when it counts. That’s rare. She told not to settle for anyone who didn’t see through . Not just the good parts, but all of . She said, ’Fall in love with the person who doesn’t flinch when you cry ugly.’"

Dominic swallowed, his eyes never leaving hers. "I see you, Celeste."

Her gaze flicked up to et his.

"I don’t flinch," he added, softly.

Her lips parted. Then she smiled faintly. She looked away for a mont, toward the headstone.

She pulled away from him for a mont, and bent to the grave. "Mom," she whispered, with a quiet sort of reverence. "I know this is late. I know I should’ve co sooner. But I needed ti to grow into soone you’d be proud of. And..." She glanced at Dominic, reaching for his hand. "I brought soone. Soone I’d love to be with,"

Dominic’s grip tightened ever so slightly around her fingers.

She placed a hand on the cold stone. The wind whispered through the trees, soft and full of mories. She didn’t cry, not anymore.

She didn’t want to have to haunt this place. She would have been here everyday, but she didn’t have it in herself to co with grace.

"I missed you," she said quietly. "And I’m sorry I stayed away so long."

Dominic stayed back a little, watching. He didn’t interrupt. This wasn’t his mont. It was hers. All of it.

Even from a distance, his chest swelled with a pride he didn’t expect, and sothing dangerously close to reverence. She chose him. To stand beside her while she laid down the last piece of her pain.

Celeste stood again, brushing dirt from her jeans, and gave a small sigh. "Okay," she whispered. "That’s enough for now."

Dominic smiled, and knelt. He stared at the grave for a mont, then began to quietly pick at the little grasses and weeds clinging to the stone, his fingers brushing dirt aside with a strange gentleness.

"What are you doing?" Celeste half-yelled, as a strange type of tightness ford in her throat. Her heart hamred, her eyes wide with sothing between confusion and terror. "Dominic... what are you doing?"

He didn’t look at her. He kept his focus on the ground, slowly combing through the thin overgrowth like he’d done it a hundred tis. "Cleaning this place," he said calmly, like it wasn’t already shattering her. "She’ll need it."

Celeste didn’t speak.

She couldn’t.

The tears she had been holding back quietly spilled down her face without warning. She wasn’t even sure when they started. She blinked, and the world blurred.

Her lungs ached.

He could hire a team. Hell, he could hire a whole community. He could call a gardener, a landscaper, or simply pay soone to polish the stone and plant roses all around it. It wouldn’t take him more than five minutes to make it perfect through soone else.

Yet, he chose to kneel. With his bare hands. With dirt on his skin. He was brushing dust off a na that had nothing to do with him.

She didn’t know what to do with that kind of tenderness.

The grass wasn’t even thick. There wasn’t much of it at all. There were just scattered pieces that nature had laid gently around the edges of the grave, almost apologetically.

Her chest stretched too wide for her ribs, and her knees buckled. She dropped to the ground beside him, wordless.

The grass was dry, poking through the fabric of her jeans, but she didn’t care. Her hands trembled slightly as she joined him in clearing away the smallest, most invisible weeds. Her fingers brushed his once, and he didn’t pull away.

They sat in silence. Just the two of them. Kneeling in front of a stone slab that ant far too much.

Celeste’s voice ca as a whisper. "You didn’t have to."

"I know," Dominic murmured.

"I texted soone earlier," he added softly, reaching for a little moss creeping over the base of the gravestone. "They’ll bring flowers. She should have flowers, even if she’s not here to see them."

Celeste’s breath caught in her throat.

"She liked tulips," she whispered.

Dominic smiled. "I guessed that."