STEVE POV
I closed my eyes and inhaled her—deeply and slowly.
Freya smelled like vanilla from whatever lotion she always wore and that faint warm sweetness that was just her. My arms tightened around her waist more, pulling her flush against my chest until there was no space left between us.
For ten years, this day has been my undoing. A day that was supposed to be a celebration of birth, ten years ago, turned into a day of ash and silence—my mom's death. Every year on this date, I shatter. I come here to let the pieces fall where they may, away from the world, away from the life I’ve built.
And every anniversary has always been the same; I came here to sit in the wreckage alone.
Until tonight.
*
Freya shifted slightly in my hold. She pulled back just enough to look up at me—those b
