Chapter 73 LOVE IS ALWAYS BETTER WITH BURGERS #2
My legs are too wobbly. It’s like every emotion I’ve ever felt in my entire life is surging through my body and short-circuiting the parts that make me work.
But then I’m being crushed against a solid, dependable, perfect chest while two strong arms engulf me. “Who made you cry? Tell me. They’re dead. Absolutely dead.”
I somehow make my arms work to hug him back. “You did, you dummy,” I sob. “I missed you.”
“Ah, Daph.” He threads his fingers through my hair and kisses my temple. “I missed you too.”
“And I was scared you—you—you wouldn’t want me anymore.”
“Daphne,” he whispers. Just my name, but with tenderness and reverence and empathy and a million little meanings behind it.
“I know you said—you said you’d come—but I left you in—in jail.”
“I broke out. Picked the lock. Made a run for the border with the help of an old cowboy and a runaway fairy princess. Totally fine, like I told you I would be.”
I laugh, but I’m crying too hard, and instead, I choke and send myself into a coughing fit.
“Ah, young love,” Simon says cheerfully. “So marvelous and beautiful.”
“Spoken like a man who found it while immensely hungover,” Bea murmurs.
“Exactly that, my darling.”
I squeeze Oliver tight.
He squeezes me right back. “Archie wouldn’t give me your phone number.”
“I told you he’s an asshole.”
He laughs against me, and suddenly everything is right in the world again.
He’s here.
He promised he’d be here, and he’s here.
Unless he’s a mirage.
“Are you real?” I ask him.
“Exactly the same as being drunk,” Simon says.
“Shush.” Bea laughs.
“Very real,” Oliver says. “And glad that you had entertainment the past few days, if the past few minutes are any indication.”
“Don’t leave again.”
“I’m not leaving again.”
“Promise?”
“Daph, everything else in my life was chosen for me. I’m not running away from my life. I’m running to it. I choose you. I want to make a new life with you.”
“Oliver,” I whisper.
He kisses my forehead, then my hair. “I’m completely done in the city. Any loose ends can be done over email now.”
“I was so proud of you today. You did an amazing thing that will be so good for a lot of people.”
“I hope you’re right.” He kisses my forehead again. Strokes my back. Holds me tight while I get a grip on my breathing, just letting me be. Letting me cry it all out until the tears are gone.
He feels so good.
So right.
And for the first time in what feels like forever, I’m safe.
Safe. Home. Loved.
I’ve had all of those things courtesy of Bea, but now—now, it’s more.
Oliver makes it all complete.
“I think I’m still a little bit of a disaster,” I whisper.
“No, Daph. You’re absolutely perfect. God, I missed you.”
“She hasn’t been sleeping well,” Bea says, closer. A bag rustles. “Or eating well. Here. Eat here, take it to go, whatever works for you. But please eat. Both of you.”
“Thank you,” Oliver says.
And I giggle through the threat of more tears.
He’s using his manners again.
“Don’t think I’m using them with you,” he murmurs to me, like he knows what I’m thinking.
“Thank you for making sure she got home safe,” Bea replies. “A fortune teller told me a few weeks ago that she wouldn’t come home, and I’ve been a little bit of a wreck waiting for her since she left.”
“I would’ve been too,” he tells her. “Don’t go see fortune tellers.”
“Madame Petty is awesome,” I say into his neck. “We are absolutely going to see her. But maybe not for like, a year. Or five years.”
Oliver laughs.
Bea laughs.
My tears are drying up, and all I have now—it’s all warmth.
Squishy, heart-swelling warmth that comes with a side of glow.
I wipe my face off and sit up, staring into Oliver’s hazel eyes, and I start to smile. “You’re here.”
He smiles back, the worry lines easing in his beautiful face. “I’m here.”
“To stay?”
“To find a house with fewer than seven rooms and get a dog and convince this woman who stole my heart to move in with me and help me make the world a better place.”
Dammit, he’s making me cry again. “You’re gonna love it here. We have festivals every weekend—Bea, what’s this weekend?”
“Cardboard boat regatta,” Bea reports.
Oliver squints one eye at me, then at her, then back at me. “You enter every year, don’t you?”
“Not since the first year when my boat sank before they blew the whistle to start the race.”
“I have pictures,” Bea says. “And video.”
“First goal—build Daphne a better cardboard boat,” he murmurs.
The scent of hamburger tickles my nose again, and for the first time in days, I’m hungry. I grab the bag of burgers Bea made us, then dig into my pocket for my car keys. “Bea?”
She catches them with a smile. “We’ll get it home by morning.”
“Thank you. You’re the best.”
“Only most of the time.”
I rise and pull Oliver to his feet too. “Wanna go hide from the world for a few days in a place with running water and every streaming subscription known to man?”
He shakes his head. “No. But I do want to go hide from the world for a few days with you, whether there’s running water and streaming subscriptions or not. And then plan another road trip. And some camping. New adventures and fun every day.”
And there go my eyeballs getting leaky again. “I love you,” I whisper.
His face erupts in the biggest smile I’ve ever seen as he grabs me and swings me in a circle in the back of my best friend’s burger bus, ending with a kiss so thorough that I drop the burger bag.
“Good,” he says. “Because I love you too.”