CHAPTER 27 #2
“Don’t look now.” Cherry nudges me while Rosie grasps my hand. “Your time is up.”
I follow her eyeline and inhale swiftly. Because there in the garage below us is Nathan, and he’s talking to Nicky, his eyes like a missile zooming in on my face.
“Oh my gosh, I’m not ready.” I wipe my sweaty hands on my jeans and smooth back my hair.
Before we landed in Melbourne, Rosie had done my make-up, straightened my hair and not-so-gently suggested an outfit change.
Now that we’re here and the moment is almost upon me, I’m grateful she did this.
That at least my outsides appear put together, while my insides are a crumbling mess.
“He’s coming this way,” Rosie squeals into my ear. I block her out, my lungs contracting painfully as my eyes connect with his. His eyebrows are drawn down, and his jaw is clenched tight. He doesn’t seem thrilled to see me.
“You’ve got this,” Cherry whispers as I stand up. “It will all be fine.”
“Thanks,” I say with a tremulous smile. “I guess I should go talk to him.”
Rosie nudges me, and my body lurches in his direction. All of a sudden, Nathan is there, in front of me, in the flesh. And he’s beautiful.
“Katie?” he says my name quietly with a large amount of shock ringing through that one word. “What are you doing here?”
I glance around, sensing many sets of eyes on me. “Um, I came to see you. Is there somewhere we can go to talk?”
Nathan frowns as he looks behind me to where Cherry and Rosie are grinning at us maniacally. “Sure, follow me.”
He turns on his heel and walks away while I glance back at my friends, who are now making shooing motions with their hands.
“Go get him!” Rosie yells.
Okay, I’ve got this. I follow behind Nathan, soaking in the breadth of his back in his Redline Racing suit. He’s so hot, I’m surprised my eyeballs aren’t on fire just looking at him.
“We can talk in here.” Nathan opens the door to a small room no bigger than my living room at home and motions me in. “But we need to be quick. I have to get back.”
I note the tight line of his mouth and the way he’s holding himself stiffly. He doesn’t look happy to see me.
“I’m sorry to turn up like this,” I start, wishing I’d practised a speech. “I don’t want to derail your testing session.”
He looks down and back up again, his eyes lacking their usual warmth. “You obviously have something you need to say.”
I nod, wondering if this was a mistake. If I read the snow globes and the hair ties, all wrong.
The hair ties! A quick glance at his wrist tells me all I need to know, and I step forward, so we’re chest to chest, almost touching, but not quite.
“Yes. I needed to thank you for the snow globes.”
He swallows hard, his eyes darting away from mine. “It was no big deal.”
I inch closer, leaning forward to catch his eye. “It was a very big deal. It meant everything to me.”
His jaw tightens further. “And yet, you didn’t call. You didn’t even text.”
“Yes.”
Hurt flashes across his face, and I place my hands on his chest, needing to touch him. “I’m sorry for not reaching out earlier. I just…couldn’t.”
His big hand rests over mine, like he can’t help wanting to touch me as well. “I know you said you were done, and I shouldn’t have sent them. It’s just that I saw them and thought of you.”
“I love them. And I love that you sent them, that you were thinking of me. I should have responded; I was being selfish by not responding.”
He stares down at me, his gaze tracing over my face. “Well, you’re here now.”
I gulp, willing my heart not to race out of my chest. “I’m here now. And I have so much to say. But the first thing I want to—need to—tell you is that I love you.”
His eyes flare, and his lips twitch into the smallest of smiles. “You do?”
I nod. “Yes, I really, really do. I should have said it to you back on New Year's Eve in my flat. I will always regret letting you walk out that door, not knowing how I felt. Because you were right, Nathan. I love you so much, it scared me. The thought of loving and losing someone else, it sent me into a panic. I was grasping at straws, trying to find a valid reason to send you away because of how desperately my heart wanted to keep you close.”
His lips crash on mine before the last word is out of my mouth, and I sink into him. He kisses me like I’ve been put on this Earth just for him to kiss. He kisses me like a man who is drowning and only my lips can save him. He kisses me like he never wants to stop kissing me.
“So, um, yeah,” I mumble when we draw back for air. That kiss has fried all my brain cells. “That’s it. I came to tell you I’m sorry. And I love you. And I want to be with you, in any way you’ll have me.”
His arms band around my back, holding me tightly to him like he’s never going to let me go.
Fine by me. “I love you, too, Kitty Kat. And I want to be with you in any and all ways. I’m aware we have challenges ahead, with distance and my job, and my family, but I’m in this.
I will make this work. As long as you’ll have me, I’m yours. ”
I stand on my tippy toes and press soft kisses onto his cheeks, his eyelids, along his jaw before settling on his mouth. “I’ll have you forever, thanks,” I whisper against his lips.
Nathan whoops, picking me up and spinning me around. “You do not know what it meant to see you up in that stand today, Kitty Kat. When you didn’t contact me after that last snow globe, I thought I’d lost you forever.”
“I’m sorry. I was an idiot. It took me too long to get here, to be brave. But now that I am, I’m not going anywhere. You’re stuck with me.”
His lips worship mine with another toe-curling, spine-tingling kiss, only letting me go when the knocking at the door gets too loud to ignore.
“Sorry to interrupt,” Theo says, his dark eyes zeroing in on us, a smile growing on his lips. “But you kinda have a job to do.”
Nathan chuckles, squeezing me to him. “Sure thing, boss. I’ll be right there.”
Theo nods before turning to leave. “I’m happy this worked out.”
“Thanks for your help,” I call to his disappearing back. “Theo and Rosie got me here. But even if they hadn’t, I would have found a boat and rowed to you. Once I figured out being with you was the only thing that mattered, nothing was standing in my way.”
His handsome face lights up. “And what got you there? To this moment of clarity?”
I pull at the arm of his race suit, rubbing the two hair ties still lingering on his wrist. “I saw these. And it all came flooding back. The reality of you, of who you are and what I was giving up, hit me like a freight train. Nathan, you’re worth a trip across the world.
You’re worth the challenges of long distance. You’re worth everything.”
Tears shimmer in his eyes as he gazes down at me, his love shining brightly for me to see. “You’re worth everything, Kitty Kat. I’d give this all up if you’d ask me to.”
“You don’t need to do that. We’ll work it out.”
His smile is wide and brilliant. “I know we will. You and me together? We’re the real deal.” After another brief kiss, he wrenches his mouth from mine. “I’d better get going. You’ll be here when I’m done?”
I’m quick to extinguish the glimmer of doubt in his eyes. “I’ll be here waiting for you. I’ll always be here waiting for you.”
“I like the sound of that.”
Nathan swaggers away, blowing me a kiss before turning around the corner. With a sigh, I catch it and hug it to me, my heart thumping wildly in my chest.
“I did it, Mum,” I whisper as I walk out into the Aussie sunlight. “I’m here in Melbourne, in love with a man who loves me back.”
A flutter of warm wind wraps around me like a hug, and I grin, feeling whole again for the first time since she left me. Feeling like I’m not alone in the world anymore.
Who would have thought a chance encounter with an old school friend on a bleak Friday evening would have brought me here? To the other side of the world, surrounded by new friends and in love with my perfect man. All it took was a bit of fake dating, only one bed and a few epic grand gestures.
Turns out our love story was just like the movies I love so much. Only, lucky for me, our story isn’t fake or fiction.
Me and Nathan? We’re real. And we’re for always.