Chapter 45
chapter forty-five
LEO
Marisol went back to Sorrento last night for a meeting with Eva, and I feel like I’ve barely left this couch in the last twenty-four hours.
I’ve been sitting here, bingeing The Great British Bake Off.
Back in the day, I would’ve watched some action movie blockbuster, but now I can’t get through them without flinching.
So British Bake Off it is—besides, I swear you get the same adrenaline rush watching some guy fight his way through a battle scene as you do watching bakers transfer their cakes onto a stand in a three-second time crunch.
I hear a car pull into the drive, and I push pause on the TV when it sounds like multiple doors open and shut. I wander over to the door and pull it open to see Marisol rolling four suitcases and two duffel bags toward me. Well, right now she’s fighting with them more than anything.
“What is this?” I ask, and her eyes widen as she looks up at me.
“Oh,” she breathes. “I wanted to knock.”
A small smile climbs up my face. “Sorry, did I ruin your moment?”
“Kind of,” she says, and I can’t help but notice that she looks a little bit nervous.
“Are you moving in?” I tease, assuming that all of this actually has to do with her trip away.
“If you’ll have me,” she says with a shrug.
My heart stops. “Wait…what?”
“I’m not going to the Caribbean.” She steps forward, abandoning her luggage.
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t want to spend four weeks anywhere but in your arms.” My heart squeezes inside my chest, but then I realize what she’s saying. What she’s giving up…for me. For us.
“Marisol.” I begin to shake my head. “No.”
Her brows pull together. “What do you mean, no?”
“I mean…” I loose a breath. “You’ve worked so hard for this. You shouldn’t give that up for…for me. I don’t ever want to be the reason you walk away from something that you want.”
“You’re not,” she says, stepping closer to me.
“You’re the one who made me wonder what it is I truly want out of my life, and it’s not fame, it’s not fashion shoots until I’m too old to be considered a fresh face.
It’s not success in a system where I’m fighting myself to get there.
” She reaches up, wrapping her arms around my neck.
“It’s this. It’s you and me on that couch, and a goddamn veggie garden in the backyard.
” She laughs. “And spending time with our family. It’s giving time to the important things.
Life isn’t long, and I don’t want to waste any more time pretending.
” I find my hands on the side of her face as she speaks, soaking in every single word she says.
“I’m not giving up my life for you. I’m just…trading it in for the life that you showed me I could have, the one I fell in love with, with the man I fell in love with. So if you want this, if you’ll have me—for real this time—”
I crash my lips into hers, not giving her a chance to ask me if this is what I want, because there’s nothing I’ve ever wanted more than for her to be mine.
Marisol climbs into my arms, smiling against my lips. “Did you just say you fell in love with me, covergirl?” I ask.
“God, I hate boosting your ego.” She shakes her head, and I just grin.
“I love you, Marisol,” I say, all jokes aside, because they’re three little words I never thought I’d get to say to her.
“I love you too, baby.” Her arms tighten around me as she kisses me once again, her smile never leaving her face. “You’re gonna have to make some room in your closet, though.”
“Lucky we have a few extra rooms, huh?”
She gasps. “I get the boy and the walk-in closet?”
“Lucky you,” I say.
She smiles back at me. “Lucky me.”