Chapter Twenty-Five
The screwdriver slipped on the light fixture she was replacing, scraping her knuckle and making her curse.
She sucked in a breath, about to try again, when the crunch of tires on gravel stopped her suddenly.
She looked out the window at the driveway and saw Alex’s silver SUV coming to a halt.
Already? She must have dropped everything after receiving the text.
Sam tossed the screwdriver into the toolbox with a loud clatter.
She hurried down the hall, catching her reflection in the hall mirror.
Her hair was pulled back in a messy ponytail, cheeks flushed from exertion, but there was no time to fix it now.
The soft knock came while she was wiping her hands on a rag.
Taking a deep breath, she squared her shoulders and headed to the front door, mentally rehearsing what she needed to say.
It’s now or never, she thought, reaching out a trembling hand to open the door.
Alex stood on the porch, a vision in a soft cream sweater and jeans, hair slightly damp from a recent shower.
She was hugging herself with her too-long sweater sleeves, gazed fixed down at the welcome mat until she glanced up at the sound of the door opening.
When she saw Sam, her face lit up, but not with an overdone, toothy grin.
This smile was shy but hopeful, almost like she didn’t want to scare Sam away.
“Sorry,” she began. “I got your text and came right away.”
Sam stepped outside, closing the distance between them in two strides, and kissed her—not tentatively but with the deliberate slowness and sureness of someone savoring something they’d been denied for far too long.
Alex’s hands found Sam’s waist, steadying them both.
Sam didn’t know if the kiss lasted five seconds or five minutes, but when they finally broke apart, foreheads resting one against the other, she knew without a doubt that this was right.
“Well, that wasn’t the greeting I was expecting,” Alex finally said.
Sam tilted her head to the side in question.
Alex flushed, dropping her hands from Sam’s waist and curling her hands into fists inside the sleeves of her sweater. “Your text…” Her voice trailed off, sounding uncertain. “You wanted to talk…” Alex shrugged and looked down at her feet.
Sam tilted Alex’s chin up with the tip of her finger, urging her to meet her eyes. “It’s okay,” she said. “There’s nothing to freak out about.” She dropped her finger and took Alex’s hand, squeezing it gently. “We’re good. I promise.”
Alex appeared hesitant, chewing slightly on her lower lip and bouncing lightly on the balls of her feet. Sam dropped her hand and stepped back, giving her space to move into the house. Alex smiled shyly as she ducked past her.
“I made coffee,” Sam called after her. When she entered the kitchen, Alex was leaning against the counter looking out the window. Sam refilled her cup and grabbed a second one, filling it up and handing it over to Alex.
“Thank God.” Alex gave her a relieved smile. “I kind of scooted out of the house and didn’t have time to grab any.” She gestured down her body. “I thought a shower was more important, but I won’t make that mistake again.”
For a moment, they just stood in the kitchen, shoulder to shoulder, looking out the window and sipping their coffee together.
It was all so normal that Sam’s heart ached.
She realized then that this was what she was missing—something as simple as sharing coffee with the woman she loved, and how it had the ability to completely change her day.
“So,” Alex said, bumping Sam’s shoulder lightly with her own. “Are we going to talk or…?”
Sam set her mug down and turned slightly so she was facing Alex.
She didn’t want to hide from the conversation they were about to have.
She paused a moment, searching Alex’s face as she thought about the best way to start the conversation.
Then she dove in. “Okay, so. I have to go back to Boston.” Sam cringed internally.
That wasn’t how she planned it in her head.
Alex blinked at her. “Oh.”
“It’s…” Sam hesitated, then forced herself to keep going down the path she had chosen.
“I was offered a promotion. A big one. Stephanie—that’s my boss—called me on Friday before our date.
I would be a director. I’d have my own team.
I’d get a twenty-five percent raise.” She swallowed, watching Alex’s face carefully.
“I didn’t tell you before because I didn’t want to ruin our date, and I wasn’t sure I even wanted it anymore.
But they needed an answer by the end of the week. ”
Alex nodded, but her lips pressed into a thin line. “That’s…wow, Sam.” She swallowed hard. “That’s really great. You worked your ass off for that. You deserve it.”
Sam tried to read her face, but it had turned into something locked down and expressionless. “Yeah, I guess I did.”
“I mean it,” Alex said. “You should take it. If that’s what you want, you should absolutely take it. Don’t—” She stopped, a muscle twitching in her jaw. “Don’t worry about me,” she finally said. “Or this. Or any of it. Do what’s right for you.”
Sam felt her frustration rising. Once again, Alex was trying to take the easy way out, running when things got hard, or saying something she didn’t mean out of some kind of misplaced sense of making things easier for everyone but herself. “What if what’s right for me isn’t the job?”
Alex met her gaze, her blue eyes intense and searching. “Then you do that instead.”
Sam’s vision grew fuzzy. The world shrank to just the two of them there, in her mother’s kitchen. She could feel her heart beating rapidly in her chest. “I told them no,” she said, her voice steady, even as her hands trembled. “I turned it down.”
Alex’s mouth opened, but nothing came out.
Her hand curled around her mug so tightly that her knuckles whitened, and Sam worried it might shatter.
She stared at Sam as if she was waiting for a punchline or the other shoe to drop.
The silence stretched so long that Sam began to wonder if she had actually heard her. “You…what?”
Sam inhaled deeply and swallowed past the tightness in her throat. “What if what is right for me is you?” Alex’s eyes went wide. “I want you. That’s what I want. I want all of this.” Sam gestured around the kitchen. “The house. Hicksville. All of it. But only if you’re in it.”
Alex’s eyes glistened. “I don’t—” Her voice cracked. “I don’t know what to say.”
Sam’s chest tightened at the raw vulnerability, the hope and fear she saw battling across Alex’s face. Every cell in her body screamed to reach out, to pull Alex against her and never let her go again.
“You don’t have to say anything yet.” Sam lifted her shoulders in a slight shrug.
She looked down at their still entwined hands.
“But I love you, Alex. I’ve loved you from the moment I met you in that English class, and I know now that I never stopped loving you.
” She shook her head. “And I know that I should have told you sooner about the promotion, but I was afraid that I might lose you.” She turned so she was fully facing Alex and took both of her hands in hers.
“So, I told my boss about you, about us. And she helped me apply for a transfer. I didn’t even know they had an office in Pittsburgh.
I start there next week. Oh, the house is no longer for sale.
I took it off the market. Well, Melissa never actually put it on the market. But it’s still not for sale.”
Sam finally paused, knowing she was rambling. She lifted her shoulders in a shrug. “It’s where I live now. And maybe, eventually, where you’ll want to live, too. With Sophie. And me.”
“Sam…” Alex breathed.
“I know, I know, it’s crazy,” Sam rushed to continue, her voice trembling. “But I can’t lose you again. I can’t keep living my life without you in it. Please tell me that you want that, too.”
At first, Alex just stared at her, the silence stretching so long that Sam began to panic.
Then Alex let out a shuddering breath, and the tears in her eyes broke free, running down her cheeks in shiny streaks.
“Of course I want that,” she finally said, voice thick and raw with emotion.
“Of course I want you.” She wiped at the tears on her cheeks.
Sam laughed then, a weird hiccup of a laugh that caught on the lump in her throat. She swiped at her tears with the back of her hand. “God, we’re a pair,” she said. And she meant it. They’d always been a pair, even when they tried not to be.
“It’s always been you, Sam.” Alex’s mouth trembled in a way that made Sam ache to kiss it. “And I was so scared to want that again. But all I’ve wanted for so long is to be with you.”
“You do?” Sam held her breath tentatively.
“I do.” Alex moved in closer. She reached up a hand to cup Sam’s cheek. “So, so much.”
Sam’s heart nearly burst out of her chest. The crushing weight that had been suffocating her for years finally lifted.
She leaned her whole body into Alex’s touch, trembling as she inhaled deeply.
When she opened her eyes, the world faded away around them—nothing existed beyond her and Alex, there in her mother’s kitchen.
Alex moved closer, her eyes never leaving Sam’s.
In that moment, everything they’d been through—all the years apart, all the longing—crystallized into something perfect and inevitable.
Sam’s breath caught as Alex’s fingertips traced along her jaw, the touch erasing every doubt she’d ever had.
She put both palms on Sam’s chest and slid them up until they were locked around her neck.
She leaned in slowly, until Sam could feel Alex’s breath caress her ear.
“I want us, Sam.” She brushed her lips gently against Sam’s. “Now and forever.”
That first kiss was tentative, gentle. It was both a question and an answer all at once. It was another first kiss for two women who were on their third first kiss together, each of them hoping that this one would be the last.
When they parted, foreheads resting together, Sam whispered, “This is just the beginning.”
Alex smiled back through her tears. “Not everyone gets to begin again.” She kissed her again. “Let’s make the most of it.”