Chapter 38
Nick wondered if he was going to throw up. Or chicken out and drive all the way back to Henderson without even going inside.
The brightly lit sign over the door of the Manhattan Center dared him to do it.
Sweat slicked his palms, everything in him screaming to run away, that this would only amount to another fall with a painful
end. That painful endings were all he could ever hope for.
But he steeled his jaw, because fuck that. He’d doubted himself all his life, and where had that gotten him, except lost and
heartbroken and alone? For once, he would go to war. For himself, just like Jackson had said.
If that meant going out in a blaze of glory, so be it.
Nick lowered his eyes. And immediately encountered a pair of jade ones that nearly knocked him off his feet.
Aubrey. Fuck, she looked stunning. Stunned, too, but still every bit as beautiful as the day he’d first sat down beside her
in English class and tried to ignore her siren call.
Holy shit, how he’d failed in that endeavor.
“Hi.” His voice came out rough, but the sight of her smoothed the emotional riot inside him. Yes, he would do this. His whole life had only ever been leading him here, to this moment. He suddenly had no idea why he’d ever fought it.
“Hi.” She took a step. “I was just, uh, coming to see you. In Indiana.”
He blinked. “You what?”
“Yeah.” She pointed behind him. He turned as a silver sedan with a lit Uber icon pulled up to the curb. The driver rolled
the window down.
“Sorry,” Aubrey called to him. “It looks like I don’t need you after all.”
The driver made a rude gesture and zoomed off. When Nick turned back, her face had melted in a smile.
“You were going to take an Uber to Indiana?” he said, disbelieving.
“More or less.”
“And . . . then what?”
Another step. Her eyes shimmered a shade of green he swore he hadn’t glimpsed in seventeen years. “I was going to grovel.
Tell you I love you. That I always have, and I’ll do whatever I have to if you’ll just be with me. I’ll work remotely from
Henderson, if that’s what it takes, or . . . whatever. We can figure it out. But I want you now, not in two years. And I’m
so sorry I didn’t say so sooner. You deserved so much more than what I’ve given you, but I’m going to do better. And I hope
it’s not too late.”
Every word crackled lightning down his spine, then sank into him, a molten glow. This had to be what heaven felt like.
“I . . . had a whole speech,” he said, and didn’t recognize his own voice. The distance between them became unbearable, so
he closed it. Aubrey tipped her face up, allowing him to count each beloved freckle.
“And?” A smile infused her voice. “What was it?”
“I forgot.” His fingers found her cheeks. Pure wonder flowed through him. Amazement that he could ever even hope to call a woman like this his.
“You?” she said. “At a loss for words? Of all people?”
His mouth curled. “It was something about deserving you, I think. How I’ve always told myself I don’t, but I’m calling bullshit
on that.”
“You finally figured that out?”
“Well. Paige may’ve had to beat it into my head a little. Jackson, too.”
She gazed up. “Good. I’m glad. Because you deserve the world. Everything you want. You’re the noblest, most incredible, stubbornest,
most gorgeous, foulest-mouthed, most ridiculously intelligent human I’ve ever met. Not to mention phenomenal in bed. And . . .
there’s just no end to it. You’re like a number that equals the sum of its divisors. Perfect.”
He searched her eyes. Light crested inside him, a sunrise burning away shadows. He cupped her face and kissed her, soft and
sweet and endless, and it occurred to him that he’d never done that before, crossed the distance first while trusting he had
every right to.
When he pulled away, with her sweetness clinging to his lips and her sunshine filling his nose, she looked up from beneath
her lashes, almost shy.
“Paige made it sound like you had a question for me.”
His heartbeat hitched. “Paige? You talked to her?”
“I did.”
“When?”
“Just now. When I was going to drive to Henderson and find you.”
He tried to process that. “Did she tell you what my question was?”
“No.” A knowing smile curved her mouth. “But god, do I have a strong opinion on what I want it to be.”
“All your opinions are strong,” he said.
She laughed. “True.”
He swallowed. His nerves wakened. This was so different. No park bench or sad dandelions. Just the only woman he would ever
love, plus a proper box this time, filling his pocket like a grenade.
“Just one thing,” Aubrey said.
He raised an eyebrow.
“Ask me standing up.”
“You don’t want me down on one knee?”
Her breath caught. “No,” she warbled, then swallowed. “If anything, I should be the one getting down on the sidewalk. I would,
if this damned dress wasn’t so restricting. I have so much to make up to you.”
The ridiculousness of that notion made him chuckle. “You don’t.”
“I do.”
“Fine. You can spend all night making it up to me. Just let me do this, first.”
She laughed wetly. He pulled the box from his pocket. Her gloved hands cradled his as he flipped the lid to reveal a rose-gold
confection with a polished black gemstone at the center.
His pulse sped. This part made him nervous, no matter how many times he’d practiced beforehand. “I’m sorry it’s not a diamond.
It can be, in a couple years. Once I get back on my feet from the divorce.”
A thick, happy sound fell from her lips as her eyes locked on the ring. “Oh, wow. I don’t want a diamond. This is so much
better. It’s the same color as your eyes.”
“So . . . is that a yes?”
She looked up. “You haven’t asked me anything yet. But you know what? I don’t want you to do that part, either. I’ll just say yes. A million yeses. If you’ll say yes to me, too.”
Relief choked him, and his heart sang as he plucked the ring from its velvet, peeled away Aubrey’s left glove, then slipped
it on her finger.
“I fucking love you,” he said.
“I fucking love you. So much.”
He kissed her again, long and deep, until a flame kindled in his belly, the kind that would burn him up unless he got her
somewhere private. He kissed her until her she clung to him, and when he finally pulled away her eyes had gone glassy, her
pupils shot wide.
“Do you want to go back to your party?” he said.
“No,” she breathed. “Take me home.”
“To your place?”
“Yeah. Where I can spend all night making things up to you. And one-upping the upstairs neighbors. And then, in the morning,
I want to go to Henderson. To my house. Or . . . our house, now, I guess.”
He blinked. “Is that how this is going to work? Because I was going to move here.”
A drunken smile spread across her lips. “What about Paige?”
“We talked and . . . it’s okay. We’re okay.”
The grin that lit her face was so sweet he felt an answering happiness rise in his chest. “Why don’t we stay in Henderson
’til she’s done with school? Then we can move back here or . . . whatever you want. Okay?”
Pure joy shot along every nerve. “Okay,” he said, gathering her in his arms. “Absolutely okay.”
She laughed. He buried his face in her hair and breathed her in like sustenance, until he could think of nothing but finding
the nearest wall as soon as possible.
The night passed in a delirious, blurry haze.
There was a phone call to an overjoyed Paige.
An Uber he kissed Aubrey all the way home in.
A heap of formalwear shed on the floor of her bedroom.
There was the sheer ecstasy of burying himself in her softness and heat, the way her lashes fluttered against her cheeks as she tipped her head back and let her tongue trip over his name.
And there was definitely a wall, somewhere in the mix.
Many hours later, as the sun came up, Aubrey lay naked and wild-haired in the crook of his arm, smiling her way into sleep.
She whispered one last thing, just before her eyes closed.
“I’m so glad I don’t have to get a cat.”