promise of a lifetime - part 3
Title: Promise of a lifetime
Fandom: Twilight
Pairing: Quil/Claire
Rating: T for the themes, I guess. It'll probably change on later chapters.
Summary: Multi-chapter story sequel to my oneshot Just Breathe.
A/N.: I won't try to explain my epic delay in updating this cos there are no excuses. Well, there is life. But other than that...
Oh and this un-beat-ed, so if there are too much typos, grammar errors or your good old time-traveling (when I mix the verb tenses), just overlook it, please? Thanks! You guys rock!
. . .
It’s barely eight o’clock when the doorbell rings. Claire groans and gets up to answer the door. Who would really knock on someone’s door at that time of the morning? The bright pair of green eyes that lit up once she swings the door open reminds her that only one person would.
“Holy shit, you really are back!” the girl curses under her breath while opening up a smile as bright as her eyes are at the moment.
Claire matches her grin, “In the flesh.”
“You… whore!” she shrieks and throws her arms around Claire, holding her tight into a hug that means to make it up for all the time they’ve been apart. Olivia is six months younger and has been Claire’s closest friend ever since they can remember.
When she finally lets go of the other girl, she sighs and stomps her foot, “Why didn’t you tell me you were coming back?”
Claire only shrugs, “It was a surprise.”
“And surprised I am!” she fake-punches Claire in the arm and walks past her and into the house.
They follow back to Claire’s bedroom. Claire quietly closes the door behind them, watching as Olivia takes a seat by the foot of the bed.
“How are you?” she asks avoiding the subject at hand.
“Oh, screw that!” Olivia waves both hands in the air, “I’m great, now tell me what I wanna know.” She practically bounces on the bed.
Claire rolls her eyes and sits on a chair across the room, “Ollie…” she groans inwardly.
“Don’t you ‘Ollie’ me! You’ve been sending me all those long-ass emails since you left, but none of them said why you left.”
Playing with the hem of her t-shirt, Claire tries to stall, “It’s not something to tell over the phone or via email. It was complicated.”
“Which is why you said you’d tell me once you were back,” Olivia ads and crosses her legs on top of each other with a sigh, “So now spill it.”
“Okay” Claire agrees reluctantly. She takes a deep breath and tries to make the words sound as easy as they seem to be inside her head, “I… it was Quil.”
Olivia frowns, “Quil made you leave?”
“No. We-God, it was such a mess. Remember that Donnie Holgan’s party we had after prom?”
One of Olivia’s eyebrows shoots up, “The one you never showed up after you convinced me to let you borrow my gorgeous aqua cocktail dress? The very same dress I never, ever saw it again?”
Claire is about to roll her eyes when she remembers something, “Oh! I found it yesterday while unpacking.” She gets up and goes to her closet. After a few minutes searching around, she comes up with the dress neatly folded in her hands. She hands it to Olivia with an apologetic look.
“Sorry, though…”
When Olivia holds the dress up in front of her, she can see the full ripped damage, “Jesus, Claire! What happened to my dress?”
She shrugs, “I don’t know. One minute Quil was saying I couldn’t leave, then I yelled, he pleaded, I yelled some more and then-next thing I know… he was ripping the dress and we were on his bed.”
“Shut up!” Olivia shrieks and gets up from the bed on a jump, “You had sex with Quil?!”
Claire glances from her to the door and back to her again, “Would you keep your voice down!”
“Wait!” Olivia holds her hands up to stop the other girl and backs up again on the bed, “You said that Paolo guy in Italy popped your cherry.”
“Well, he didn’t.” Claire looks down and twitches her mouth to the side, “Sorry I lied about that.”
Olivia almost burst into laughs, “Oh, what-ever! Tell me about Quil. Was it awesome? Is he huge? Oh my God, he’s so hot. You know I had a crush on him, right?”
“Yes!” Claire raises her voice to keep Olivia from going on. She tries to keep her own laugh when she sees the excitement on the other girl’s face, “And I’m not telling you anything. It was amazing, but then it got too intense too fast.”
Olivia makes a face, “Ouch.”
This time Claire does laugh, “Not like that!” she throws a pillow at Olivia’s head, but she ducks. They laugh again and when it dies, Claire stares at the floor, “He said-he said he loved me. While we were…”
“He didn’t.”
“He did.”
“Such a girl” Olivia scoffs, “Just killed all his hotness.”
Ignoring the last remark, Claire leans back on the chair and sighs, “I didn’t know what to do, what to say. Then the next morning got even more serious ‘cause he told me he had been in love with me for a long time. That’s why he didn’t want me to leave.”
“You know you were in love with him too, right?” Olivia shrugs, “Anyone could see that. Except, maybe, him.”
“I knew,” Claire’s voice comes out as a whisper, “I told him so. But I also couldn’t start anything or I’d never go away. I’d have settled for him, I know I would have. And I really still wanted to leave and… live. So I left anyway before I had any second thoughts.”
“Oh, Claire…” Olivia reaches out to take one of Claire’s hands and holds it between both of hers, “You’re such an idiot.”
Claire laughs and takes her hand back, “Thanks.”
“Have you seen him yet?”
“Yeah. He came here and then we met at my aunt’s last night, but we barely spoke to each other. He wants to pretend like nothing happened to us.”
Olivia’s jaw drops, “What?!”
“I think he regrets it or something, I don’t know.”
“Do you?”
“No,” Claire shakes her head a little sad, “I just wish it had happened now, after I was done with the rest of the world.”
“Whoa. Are you really? I never thought I’d hear you say that.”
“Guess I am.”
They are silent for a moment until Olivia huffs and gets up, walking to Claire.
“Ok, you have to talk to him.”
“I tried!” Claire’s eyebrows shoot up as she tries to explain, “But he’s being stupid so I don’t care.”
“Shut up” Olivia slaps Claire’s shoulder, “You so do care. Swallow your useless pride and go talk to him.”
Claire only glares at her, “Maybe.”
. . .
Later in the afternoon, Claire goes to Emily and Sam’s to help Emily with the kids while she does her house work. She’s sitting on a chair by the kitchen door while Emily goes around the counter, fixing lunch for later. Claire is watching little Hannah as she runs around the backyard wobbling after her big brother. She even trips and falls down once, but Sammie comes back and helps her up. Claire smiles warmly at the kinds and tilts her head inside to Emily.
“I’m sorry I missed her being born.”
“That’s ok,” Emily says pulling a loaf of bread from the grocery bag, “Just don’t make another disappearing act and you shouldn’t miss anything else.”
At that, Claire slightly blushes. She can’t believe she’s embarrassed by that, it’s her life and it was her choice to leave. Not even her own parents made her feel guilty or self-conscious of her decision to go abroad. She fidgets with her fingers for a moment and nods a little.
“You know why I left.”
“Yes, I do.” Emily looks at her carefully and places one hand on the counter, to properly look at her niece, “I just don’t know why you came back. Was it for him?”
“I don’t know.” Claire shrugs, finally looking up, “Maybe in some level. But anyway, he doesn’t seem all that thrilled to see me.”
Emily scoffs at that and crosses her arms against her chest, doubtfully, “Have you two talked yet?”
“Not exactly. We tried, but…” she trails off, glancing at the kids outside and then back to her aunt with hesitation, “I didn’t want to bring you to the middle of this, Aunt Em, but do you think you could talk to Uncle Sam?”
“About what?”
“About him keeping his Alpha nose out of it. This is none of his business-”
“Claire” Emily softly raises her voice to interrupt the girl, “The relationship between a wolf and his imprintee is the most powerful one and it affects the wolf the strongest. That influences the rest of the pack, naturally, and also the ones around you two. So, of course, it’s your Uncle Sam’s business. And you know he means no harm.”
Claire shakes her head, “He doesn’t want us to be together.”
Emily arches one eyebrow, “Is that what Quil said?”
“No.” She shrugs and looks around, “But he wants to go back and slow down. Apparently, Uncle Sam doesn’t think us moving forward is such a good idea.”
Emily walks next to Claire on the chair and places one hand on the girl’s shoulder, “He just wants to make sure you two are on the same page. So you don’t hurt each other like you’ve done before.”
“Like I’ve done before.” Claire corrects and sniffs, looking up at her aunt, “I really hurt him, didn’t I?”
Emily doesn’t nod, she just runs one hand down Claire’s hair, “You can make things right, just talk to him. If that’s what you really want.”
“It is. But, it’s kind of scary ‘cause it seems like he’s always gonna love me so much more. Was it like that for you and Uncle Sam?”
“At first, yes,” Emily ponders, pulling a chair to sit next to Claire, “Their love and dedication can be pretty overwhelming. But, if you’re sure you love him back it’ll eventually even out. I can’t tell you that Sam loves me more than I love him because that’s not true anymore.”
Claire listens and only nods in response. Emily offers a smile and touches the girl’s arm to get her attention again.
“Talk to him, Claire.”
She nods again, “I’ll talk to him.”
. . .
It’s the last stroke of the nail polish brush she has so her nails are finally done and just as Claire is about to do it, Grace plops down on the couch next to her, making her smear the nail polish all over her big toe. She curses and jabs her elbow on her sister’s ribs. Grace yelps and throws one of the couch cushions at her younger sister’s head. Claire screams for her mom who pops in from the kitchen.
“Gracie,” she says on a soft tone, completely ignoring the death glares the two sisters are sending to each other, “What time is Joshua coming tomorrow?”
Grace huffs and curls away from Claire, “Around seven, I think.”
“Oh, good!”
“Who’s Joshua?” Claire asks Grace and sticks out her tongue to her.
Grace rolls her eyes, “My boyfriend.”
“You’re seeing someone?” she asks again, now genuinely interested, “Why didn’t I know this?”
Their mother jumps in, “Joshua’s a very discreet boy. He’s very polite and really good to Gracie, too.” She’s beaming with proud.
Claire stiffs a laugh, “Wow. Sounds perfect! When do I get the honor to meet him?”
“He’s coming tomorrow,” their mother continued, “He wants to meet you.”
“What?” she scrunches up her nose in confusion, “I didn’t even know he existed.”
Turning off the TV, Grace stands up and stomps away from the living room, “You were too busy living your life to know.”
Claire and her mother watch Grace leave in silence.
“Don’t listen to her. You’re gonna love Joshua!”
She gets a kiss from her mother and is left alone in the room. She finishes painting her toes and sighs, glancing up. All the time she’s been away from home she was only thinking of her, of how much she needed to be away and on her own, how everything was going to be awesome. She never really stopped to think how that would affect people other than her mom and dad.
She hurt Quil, she missed Hannah being born, she lost the no-secrets bond with her sister and she really, really doesn’t want to know any more down sides of her absence. She needs to start making amends.
After a quick stop on her bedroom, she walks past the kitchen and yells to her mother that she’s leaving but will be right back and oh, by the way, she’s taking the keys to the car.
The very short drive between her house and down the street to Quil and Embry’s garage is quick and in minutes she’s standing by the semi-closed big door. She ducks and walks in, standing on the other side and staring at Quil’s back as he works on a car.
She taps her foot on the floor and clears her throat. Quil doesn’t budge.
“I thought werewolves had their senses enhanced.”
“I heard you,” his reply comes from under the hood of the car, “Just thought that if you’re yelling at me, it could wait a little longer until you got here.”
She bites her lip, “I’m not here to yell at you. It’s just-,” she sighs and waits for him to stand up properly and look at her. It takes a while before he gets the hint and does it so.
He grabs a dirty rag and wipes his hands, waiting for her to continue.
“It feels wrong to be back at my house without you around. Every time I go to the kitchen I expect to find you there stealing our food. I miss watching crappy movies on TV, jogging around the beach, holding your hand whenever I feel like it, hugging you when I’m cold. You know? Like we did before. I really miss that.”
There, she says it all in one breath. When she finishes, her chest is heaving up and down from lack of enough air and anticipation to Quil’s response. She’s not used to be in the situation, so fragile and vulnerable. She likes to keep things in check, herself, her own feelings and Quil be damned for making her feel otherwise.
“I know,” he breaks his silence with a soft sigh, “I miss it, too. But you said you didn’t want to come back like before.”
“And I don’t,” she takes one anxious step towards him, “But I don’t want this either. I really miss you, Quil.”
“I miss you too, Claire.”
His eyes are pained and Claire wants to kick herself for making him feel like that, for causing him pain. She twists her fingers together and takes one deep breath.
“So, okay then. If acting like before it’s what it takes to have you back in my life that way then, fine. I’ll do it. Just, please. Just-”
The wind is knocked out of her chest and she loses the ground under her feet. Quil holds her tightly against him in a bear hug. He keeps her close until she starts to squirm for air. He settles her down, but keeps his arms around her, breathing into her hair.
“Thank you.”
. . .
Fandom: Twilight
Pairing: Quil/Claire
Rating: T for the themes, I guess. It'll probably change on later chapters.
Summary: Multi-chapter story sequel to my oneshot Just Breathe.
A/N.: I won't try to explain my epic delay in updating this cos there are no excuses. Well, there is life. But other than that...
Oh and this un-beat-ed, so if there are too much typos, grammar errors or your good old time-traveling (when I mix the verb tenses), just overlook it, please? Thanks! You guys rock!
. . .
It’s barely eight o’clock when the doorbell rings. Claire groans and gets up to answer the door. Who would really knock on someone’s door at that time of the morning? The bright pair of green eyes that lit up once she swings the door open reminds her that only one person would.
“Holy shit, you really are back!” the girl curses under her breath while opening up a smile as bright as her eyes are at the moment.
Claire matches her grin, “In the flesh.”
“You… whore!” she shrieks and throws her arms around Claire, holding her tight into a hug that means to make it up for all the time they’ve been apart. Olivia is six months younger and has been Claire’s closest friend ever since they can remember.
When she finally lets go of the other girl, she sighs and stomps her foot, “Why didn’t you tell me you were coming back?”
Claire only shrugs, “It was a surprise.”
“And surprised I am!” she fake-punches Claire in the arm and walks past her and into the house.
They follow back to Claire’s bedroom. Claire quietly closes the door behind them, watching as Olivia takes a seat by the foot of the bed.
“How are you?” she asks avoiding the subject at hand.
“Oh, screw that!” Olivia waves both hands in the air, “I’m great, now tell me what I wanna know.” She practically bounces on the bed.
Claire rolls her eyes and sits on a chair across the room, “Ollie…” she groans inwardly.
“Don’t you ‘Ollie’ me! You’ve been sending me all those long-ass emails since you left, but none of them said why you left.”
Playing with the hem of her t-shirt, Claire tries to stall, “It’s not something to tell over the phone or via email. It was complicated.”
“Which is why you said you’d tell me once you were back,” Olivia ads and crosses her legs on top of each other with a sigh, “So now spill it.”
“Okay” Claire agrees reluctantly. She takes a deep breath and tries to make the words sound as easy as they seem to be inside her head, “I… it was Quil.”
Olivia frowns, “Quil made you leave?”
“No. We-God, it was such a mess. Remember that Donnie Holgan’s party we had after prom?”
One of Olivia’s eyebrows shoots up, “The one you never showed up after you convinced me to let you borrow my gorgeous aqua cocktail dress? The very same dress I never, ever saw it again?”
Claire is about to roll her eyes when she remembers something, “Oh! I found it yesterday while unpacking.” She gets up and goes to her closet. After a few minutes searching around, she comes up with the dress neatly folded in her hands. She hands it to Olivia with an apologetic look.
“Sorry, though…”
When Olivia holds the dress up in front of her, she can see the full ripped damage, “Jesus, Claire! What happened to my dress?”
She shrugs, “I don’t know. One minute Quil was saying I couldn’t leave, then I yelled, he pleaded, I yelled some more and then-next thing I know… he was ripping the dress and we were on his bed.”
“Shut up!” Olivia shrieks and gets up from the bed on a jump, “You had sex with Quil?!”
Claire glances from her to the door and back to her again, “Would you keep your voice down!”
“Wait!” Olivia holds her hands up to stop the other girl and backs up again on the bed, “You said that Paolo guy in Italy popped your cherry.”
“Well, he didn’t.” Claire looks down and twitches her mouth to the side, “Sorry I lied about that.”
Olivia almost burst into laughs, “Oh, what-ever! Tell me about Quil. Was it awesome? Is he huge? Oh my God, he’s so hot. You know I had a crush on him, right?”
“Yes!” Claire raises her voice to keep Olivia from going on. She tries to keep her own laugh when she sees the excitement on the other girl’s face, “And I’m not telling you anything. It was amazing, but then it got too intense too fast.”
Olivia makes a face, “Ouch.”
This time Claire does laugh, “Not like that!” she throws a pillow at Olivia’s head, but she ducks. They laugh again and when it dies, Claire stares at the floor, “He said-he said he loved me. While we were…”
“He didn’t.”
“He did.”
“Such a girl” Olivia scoffs, “Just killed all his hotness.”
Ignoring the last remark, Claire leans back on the chair and sighs, “I didn’t know what to do, what to say. Then the next morning got even more serious ‘cause he told me he had been in love with me for a long time. That’s why he didn’t want me to leave.”
“You know you were in love with him too, right?” Olivia shrugs, “Anyone could see that. Except, maybe, him.”
“I knew,” Claire’s voice comes out as a whisper, “I told him so. But I also couldn’t start anything or I’d never go away. I’d have settled for him, I know I would have. And I really still wanted to leave and… live. So I left anyway before I had any second thoughts.”
“Oh, Claire…” Olivia reaches out to take one of Claire’s hands and holds it between both of hers, “You’re such an idiot.”
Claire laughs and takes her hand back, “Thanks.”
“Have you seen him yet?”
“Yeah. He came here and then we met at my aunt’s last night, but we barely spoke to each other. He wants to pretend like nothing happened to us.”
Olivia’s jaw drops, “What?!”
“I think he regrets it or something, I don’t know.”
“Do you?”
“No,” Claire shakes her head a little sad, “I just wish it had happened now, after I was done with the rest of the world.”
“Whoa. Are you really? I never thought I’d hear you say that.”
“Guess I am.”
They are silent for a moment until Olivia huffs and gets up, walking to Claire.
“Ok, you have to talk to him.”
“I tried!” Claire’s eyebrows shoot up as she tries to explain, “But he’s being stupid so I don’t care.”
“Shut up” Olivia slaps Claire’s shoulder, “You so do care. Swallow your useless pride and go talk to him.”
Claire only glares at her, “Maybe.”
. . .
Later in the afternoon, Claire goes to Emily and Sam’s to help Emily with the kids while she does her house work. She’s sitting on a chair by the kitchen door while Emily goes around the counter, fixing lunch for later. Claire is watching little Hannah as she runs around the backyard wobbling after her big brother. She even trips and falls down once, but Sammie comes back and helps her up. Claire smiles warmly at the kinds and tilts her head inside to Emily.
“I’m sorry I missed her being born.”
“That’s ok,” Emily says pulling a loaf of bread from the grocery bag, “Just don’t make another disappearing act and you shouldn’t miss anything else.”
At that, Claire slightly blushes. She can’t believe she’s embarrassed by that, it’s her life and it was her choice to leave. Not even her own parents made her feel guilty or self-conscious of her decision to go abroad. She fidgets with her fingers for a moment and nods a little.
“You know why I left.”
“Yes, I do.” Emily looks at her carefully and places one hand on the counter, to properly look at her niece, “I just don’t know why you came back. Was it for him?”
“I don’t know.” Claire shrugs, finally looking up, “Maybe in some level. But anyway, he doesn’t seem all that thrilled to see me.”
Emily scoffs at that and crosses her arms against her chest, doubtfully, “Have you two talked yet?”
“Not exactly. We tried, but…” she trails off, glancing at the kids outside and then back to her aunt with hesitation, “I didn’t want to bring you to the middle of this, Aunt Em, but do you think you could talk to Uncle Sam?”
“About what?”
“About him keeping his Alpha nose out of it. This is none of his business-”
“Claire” Emily softly raises her voice to interrupt the girl, “The relationship between a wolf and his imprintee is the most powerful one and it affects the wolf the strongest. That influences the rest of the pack, naturally, and also the ones around you two. So, of course, it’s your Uncle Sam’s business. And you know he means no harm.”
Claire shakes her head, “He doesn’t want us to be together.”
Emily arches one eyebrow, “Is that what Quil said?”
“No.” She shrugs and looks around, “But he wants to go back and slow down. Apparently, Uncle Sam doesn’t think us moving forward is such a good idea.”
Emily walks next to Claire on the chair and places one hand on the girl’s shoulder, “He just wants to make sure you two are on the same page. So you don’t hurt each other like you’ve done before.”
“Like I’ve done before.” Claire corrects and sniffs, looking up at her aunt, “I really hurt him, didn’t I?”
Emily doesn’t nod, she just runs one hand down Claire’s hair, “You can make things right, just talk to him. If that’s what you really want.”
“It is. But, it’s kind of scary ‘cause it seems like he’s always gonna love me so much more. Was it like that for you and Uncle Sam?”
“At first, yes,” Emily ponders, pulling a chair to sit next to Claire, “Their love and dedication can be pretty overwhelming. But, if you’re sure you love him back it’ll eventually even out. I can’t tell you that Sam loves me more than I love him because that’s not true anymore.”
Claire listens and only nods in response. Emily offers a smile and touches the girl’s arm to get her attention again.
“Talk to him, Claire.”
She nods again, “I’ll talk to him.”
. . .
It’s the last stroke of the nail polish brush she has so her nails are finally done and just as Claire is about to do it, Grace plops down on the couch next to her, making her smear the nail polish all over her big toe. She curses and jabs her elbow on her sister’s ribs. Grace yelps and throws one of the couch cushions at her younger sister’s head. Claire screams for her mom who pops in from the kitchen.
“Gracie,” she says on a soft tone, completely ignoring the death glares the two sisters are sending to each other, “What time is Joshua coming tomorrow?”
Grace huffs and curls away from Claire, “Around seven, I think.”
“Oh, good!”
“Who’s Joshua?” Claire asks Grace and sticks out her tongue to her.
Grace rolls her eyes, “My boyfriend.”
“You’re seeing someone?” she asks again, now genuinely interested, “Why didn’t I know this?”
Their mother jumps in, “Joshua’s a very discreet boy. He’s very polite and really good to Gracie, too.” She’s beaming with proud.
Claire stiffs a laugh, “Wow. Sounds perfect! When do I get the honor to meet him?”
“He’s coming tomorrow,” their mother continued, “He wants to meet you.”
“What?” she scrunches up her nose in confusion, “I didn’t even know he existed.”
Turning off the TV, Grace stands up and stomps away from the living room, “You were too busy living your life to know.”
Claire and her mother watch Grace leave in silence.
“Don’t listen to her. You’re gonna love Joshua!”
She gets a kiss from her mother and is left alone in the room. She finishes painting her toes and sighs, glancing up. All the time she’s been away from home she was only thinking of her, of how much she needed to be away and on her own, how everything was going to be awesome. She never really stopped to think how that would affect people other than her mom and dad.
She hurt Quil, she missed Hannah being born, she lost the no-secrets bond with her sister and she really, really doesn’t want to know any more down sides of her absence. She needs to start making amends.
After a quick stop on her bedroom, she walks past the kitchen and yells to her mother that she’s leaving but will be right back and oh, by the way, she’s taking the keys to the car.
The very short drive between her house and down the street to Quil and Embry’s garage is quick and in minutes she’s standing by the semi-closed big door. She ducks and walks in, standing on the other side and staring at Quil’s back as he works on a car.
She taps her foot on the floor and clears her throat. Quil doesn’t budge.
“I thought werewolves had their senses enhanced.”
“I heard you,” his reply comes from under the hood of the car, “Just thought that if you’re yelling at me, it could wait a little longer until you got here.”
She bites her lip, “I’m not here to yell at you. It’s just-,” she sighs and waits for him to stand up properly and look at her. It takes a while before he gets the hint and does it so.
He grabs a dirty rag and wipes his hands, waiting for her to continue.
“It feels wrong to be back at my house without you around. Every time I go to the kitchen I expect to find you there stealing our food. I miss watching crappy movies on TV, jogging around the beach, holding your hand whenever I feel like it, hugging you when I’m cold. You know? Like we did before. I really miss that.”
There, she says it all in one breath. When she finishes, her chest is heaving up and down from lack of enough air and anticipation to Quil’s response. She’s not used to be in the situation, so fragile and vulnerable. She likes to keep things in check, herself, her own feelings and Quil be damned for making her feel otherwise.
“I know,” he breaks his silence with a soft sigh, “I miss it, too. But you said you didn’t want to come back like before.”
“And I don’t,” she takes one anxious step towards him, “But I don’t want this either. I really miss you, Quil.”
“I miss you too, Claire.”
His eyes are pained and Claire wants to kick herself for making him feel like that, for causing him pain. She twists her fingers together and takes one deep breath.
“So, okay then. If acting like before it’s what it takes to have you back in my life that way then, fine. I’ll do it. Just, please. Just-”
The wind is knocked out of her chest and she loses the ground under her feet. Quil holds her tightly against him in a bear hug. He keeps her close until she starts to squirm for air. He settles her down, but keeps his arms around her, breathing into her hair.
“Thank you.”
. . .