Nine Years Ago Munich, Germany
Hallie
I was floating on air by the time we left the bakery.
Maybe I should have been more cautious, but something about Ace made me feel safer than I ever had—and free. We were just two strangers who happened to collide after dark in Munich. He made me laugh. Every single thing I suggested became his personal mission. He was smart, funny and thoughtful.
So, when we stepped outside the bakery and he looked down at me with those crystalline blue eyes, I didn’t flinch.
And when he confessed, “I want to kiss you,” I smiled up at him and said, “Then you should.”
A warmth spread through me—the way he smiled and brushed my hair back over my shoulder, placing his palm at the back of my neck. Then he leaned in and kissed my lips. It was just the faintest brush of skin to skin.
I was still gripping my to-go cup and the bag with our pastries. He still had his cup in his other hand.
That barely-there kiss made my knees wobble. Ace stepped back and I lost my footing on the cobblestone, nearly spilling my cocoa. We both burst into peals of laughter that rang into the night, the echo off the surrounding buildings and street making it sound louder than it really was.
I raised my finger to my lips, glancing up at Ace, and said, “Bitte seien Sie ruhig,” which means, Please be quiet, in German. Ace laughed harder and said, “Entschuldigung, Fr?ulein,” Excuse me, miss, just like he had shouted up to the old woman on the balcony.
We laughed together—sharing a private joke as if the world would always be ours for the taking.
And then Ace put his hand on my back as we wandered the streets. He wasn’t trying to cross a line. His touch felt natural, like I’d been waiting all my life to find him here, a whole continent away from home, and that spot on my back had been saved for his palm alone.
“I think there’s a botanical garden near here,” I told him, resisting the urge to draw closer to him as we walked.
“Let’s find it,” he said, making my wish into his command one more time.