Chapter Thirty-Three
My shoes squeak as I run in a full sprint through the airport in Phoenix. Adrenaline is pumping through my veins, and my heart hammers against my rib cage from what I’m about to do. The embers from the fire in Piper have caught me, and now I’m burning with impulsivity. Those same flames convinced me to marry her the day I spoke with her for the first time.
From the corner of my eyes, I see strange looks from people as they quickly move to the side, clearing a path for me to slip through. “Excuse me,” I quickly say as I pass them.
They assume I have poor time management and am late for a flight. But that could not be further from the truth. I need to tell Piper right now that I’m completely in love with her and that I have no intention of living my life without her. My chest is tight with anticipation and excitement as I pass the tiled pillars right out of security and into the waiting area of one of the gates.
“Excuse me!” I call out again as I run empty-handed toward the escalators that lead down to the lower level. I take a sharp left, attempting to squeeze past a family of six, each rolling large carry-ons behind them. I abruptly stop. Out of breath, I take a step back, allowing them to pass in front of me.
Anxiously standing to the side, my eyes move around the place, casually jumping from person to person. Then, at the bottom of the ascending escalator, parallel to the one I’m standing at the top of, my heart stops, forcing me to take a breath. To my surprise, my gaze lands on the only thing that matters in my world. A five foot four fiery, strawberry blonde woman dressed in the same thing I dropped her off at the airport this morning.
Piper.
The family passes, and I finally have a chance to get on, but my muscles are frozen in place while I stare down at my beautiful wife. Why is she here? She doesn’t have to report for work until Wednesday.
I move slowly, taking a calculated step onto the escalator, feeling calm and secure. Everything around me is muted, including the intercom above, the passengers chatting in the distance, and the zipping of suitcases across the marble floor. I almost reach the bottom of the stairs when a pair of beautiful hazel-green eyes spot mine.
Piper’s eyes widen, and I watch the color drain from her face. I can only smile as I descend to her.
“Jack?”
“My love,” I mutter, lifting her by the hips and scooping her into my arms. Piper’s body melts into mine. Her weight against my chest makes me feel completely whole once again. Euphoria.
“Oh my god. What are you doing here?” she asks, her legs wrapping around my waist.
I squeeze her tighter than ever, looking directly into her hazel-green eyes. “I’m here for my wife.”
“What?” her voice squeaks in disbelief.
“I’m not going to live without you. And I refuse to spend another hour of our lives without you knowing how much I’m in love with you.” I cup her damp cheeks and wipe away a tear with my thumb.
“You came back for me?”
“I had to.”
Caught up in the heat of the moment, I realize that running into her at the airport was completely unexpected since she doesn’t start work until closer to the middle of the week.
“What are you doing here? I thought you said you didn’t have to report back for a few more days.”
Piper lifts her head to face me but lowers her lashes. “I was going back to my—husband.”
“You were coming back to Dupara?” I heard every word, but I asked again for reassurance.
She nods. “Yes. Because you are my person and I refuse to exist without you either.”
My jaw twitches in shock, and I’m speechless. I bring my lips to hers, lightly kissing them before pulling away. “You don’t ever have to.”
Piper tucks her face into the crook of my neck. “I can’t believe you’re here.”
Holding her, I smile at the subtle lavender scent of her hair. “I’m glad we didn’t miss each other.”
“This is real, isn’t it?” she asks, staring into my eyes. “All of it?”
“You asked me once if I regret leaving Dupara all those years ago, and I didn’t have an answer then, but I do now.” I watch another tear fall from her eye. “No, I don’t regret that decision because if I’d never left, I never would have met Harry and Mason in college. And ultimately, my connection to them has led me to you. With everything I’ve got, every decision I’ve made up until this point in my life, it has put me on the path to you.”
She lets out a small sigh and crinkles her eyebrows while both eyes bounce between mine.
“If I could, I would go back to that night we got married in Vegas and live inside every single second. I would listen to each one of your tiny breaths, savoring every minute of it because my entire life began at that moment, and I had no idea. You are the air that I breathe and the energy in my veins. My utter existence is you.”
Piper dips her head down and nuzzles my nose before sliding down to plant her feet on the floor. Her dainty hands find mine that are hanging down between us. “I am so in love with you too. I have been since I saw you walk past me at that airport in Las Vegas. You captured my body and soul, and I refuse to take them back. They are yours, Mr. Bradley.”
My heart stills, taking in every word she’s saying. There was something undeniable between us, and finally, admitting it feels liberating. I exhale deeply, grab the back of her head, and clash my mouth into hers. My kiss isn’t as sweet as it was a second ago. It’s ravenous.
A tight murmur slips out before I hear her sweet voice. “I love you.”
“I love you,” I say into the softness of her bottom lip.
I love Piper with everything I have and hearing her feel the same is the most indescribable feeling I have ever experienced. Finding your best friend and soulmate in the same person is a rarity that I will not let slip away.
As we both stand in the middle of an airport in the city that I escaped to so many years ago, running from a life already charted for me, I will now be returning to the place I desperately ran from. But this time, I’m leaving this city eager to start a new yet familiar life back in Dupara, another thing I never thought I’d do.
She slowly pulls away, leaving me pining for more. “And you flew all the way out here to tell me this?”
“Absolutely.”
She smiles brightly.
Placing two fingers under her chin, I raise my wife’s face to mine and kiss her softly once again.
“Let’s go back to my place,” she says, threading her fingers through my hair.
“I want to do nothing else besides get buried inside you for the rest of my life.” I reach into the front pocket of my jeans. “Oh, and I almost forgot,” I say, carefully pulling out a rolled-up straw wrapper.
Piper covers her mouth in shock. “You still have it.”
I smile, grab one of her hands, and place the delicate circular-shaped piece of paper onto her ring finger. “I promise to give you a real one very soon.”
She stares down at the paper ring, then looks up at me with the flame in her eyes that I love so much. “Does this mean we won’t be getting a divorce?”
I shake my head. “Not a chance.”
“Good, because you’d never be able to get rid of me that easily.”
“I’m never going to.” I interlace my fingers through hers.
“Lina, Bailey, and Avery dropped me off, so we’ll have to take a rideshare back to my apartment.”
“You should probably tell them you’re not getting on the flight, so they’re not worried, and I’ll order the ride from my phone,” I tell her.
Piper pulls out her phone from the pocket of her cross bag and then peers behind my shoulder. “Where’s your suitcase?”
“I didn’t bring one.”
“Were you not planning on staying?”
“I was. I didn’t think that far ahead. When I walked back into our bedroom at the villas, I realized I didn’t want to be there without you. I returned as quickly as possible and hopped on the first flight out.”
“You can be quite impetuous, you know that?”
I arch an eyebrow. “Me? You’re the one who married a guy on the first date—in Vegas and drunk, I might add.”
Piper hangs off my shoulder as we walk. “I guess we both are.”
Twenty minutes later, we’re going through the door of Piper’s apartment.
I glance around the space while I wheel her luggage across the hardwood floors, setting it next to the corner of the wall. It looks exactly how I thought it would be. Natural tones of green, brown, and beige, a couple of snake and spider plants are scattered throughout the room, and a large tapestry with the moon phases printed on it hangs on the far wall behind the couch.
“This is my place,” she says, opening the blinds.
“It looks like my wife.”
Piper grabs the flaps of my jacket, yanking me into her. “I love it when you call me that.”
“I love saying it,” I reply, darting out my tongue to lick the tip of her nose. At the same time, she tilts her head up and tries to capture my tongue into her mouth but misses. I do it again, bringing out a belly laugh from us both. I wrap my arms around the back of Piper’s neck, folding them over her shoulder blades.
“I see you got the necklace.” I glance down to where it hangs perfectly around her neck.
“I did,” she says, rolling it between her two fingers. “I can’t thank you enough for it.”
“I wanted to do it.” I glide my lips across the outside of her ear. I spot two more plants peeking out behind the couch in the corner of the room.
She sees me staring, slowly turns toward my line of sight, and shrugs her shoulders. “They keep the air clean.”
I smile, appreciating everything about her. “Whatever you say.”
“I’m going to shower really quick.”
“Without me?”
She playfully frowns. “Never.”
“I thought so. I’ll be right in. I’m going to grab a glass of water.”
“Don’t make me wait too long,” she replies, lifting her shirt over her head and disappearing down the short hallway.
I walk into the kitchen and open two cupboards before finding the correct one with the cups. The shower runs in the background, causing excitement to flood me.
While holding my glass under the spout in the refrigerator door, my eyes scan the polaroids that hang across the stainless steel. In almost every photo is Piper with three other women. I recognize one as Bailey, and I’m assuming Avery and Lina are the other two. With what she shared about her mother and home life, I’m grateful she has such a strong support system with them.
Then, my focus lands on one with Piper, Bailey, and Bailey’s son Luca. I know it’s him because I remember seeing him walk down the aisle as the ring bearer at Harry’s wedding. Piper and Bailey have her son sandwiched between them in a tight hug, and they all have blue party hats on. I love seeing that smile on her face—I wonder if she’d ever want kids. I mean, we’re already married, so why not?
Circling over to the other side, I find a dry-erase calendar with dates and notes written in black marker. The notes include things like Dinner with the Girls, Work Week, Pay Roxy’s rent, and Jack’s Week—that one brings a smile to my face. When my brain catches up to the words I’ve read, my jaw flexes—Pay Roxy’s rent. Has Piper been paying her mother’s rent as well as giving her money?
My blood boils, even though I know I handled this for her already—which she doesn’t know exactly how, and I will tell her at some point. It’s time she realized that she needs to put herself first. Not her mother. She’s my wife. Hopefully, the future mother of my children, and she deserves the world.
I run my thumb across the dry-erase marker, wiping the words from the calendar. Piper will not be alone when fighting this battle. And with that, I stalk into the bathroom, ready to make love to my beautiful wife. Steam seeps out from the small crack in the door. I push it open with the palm of my hand.
“Took you long enough.” She smirks. That’s my spunky girl.
I pull my shirt off and drop my pants and boxers. “Sorry, I got caught up looking at the pictures of you and your friends on the refrigerator.”
I pull the curtain back to see Piper’s wet, glistening skin under the water. I can’t believe I almost had to say goodbye to this. Stepping in, I immediately pull her into me, savoring her warm, familiar body against me.
And she is all mine.
“I loved seeing those pictures of you.” I rub my thumb across her bottom lip. “Your smile is the most perfect thing in the world, and I will do everything in my power, Piper, to make sure you smile every day for the rest of your life.”
She stares up at me from her wet eyelashes, water droplets forcing her to blink a few times. “How did I get so lucky to deserve you?”
“You deserve the world, my love. All of it.” I softly kiss her slippery lips. “I also saw something concerning your calendar.”
“What was that?”
I clear my throat. “Do you pay Roxy’s rent?”
Piper dips her head, resting her forehead on my chest without answering my question.
“You shouldn’t be doing that. Your mother is perfectly capable of paying for her own bills.”
“I know. But you don’t know the type of guilt trips she puts on me. The things she says to me and how she makes me feel. It’s difficult for me to say no to her.”
“I know how she speaks to you, and it won’t happen anymore. A mother’s love should never be conditional. You are strong, independent, and smart. You have the power to establish boundaries with her.”
“I hear you, but the bad stuff is always easier to believe.”
“You will no longer have to fight this battle alone. I will be here with you, and together, we’ll come up with ways that you can still have a relationship with her but with healthy boundaries.” I wipe the water from Piper’s face. “There’s this fire in you that I love so much. And if you don’t stop letting other people win, it will go out.”
After the shower, Piper and I cuddle into her bed. Since I have no clothes here, we both lie naked, tangled in each other’s limbs and the bed sheets. She’s on her side with my body draped over hers. My cheek rests on her temple, and my lips gently glide along the sweet skin on her neck. “I want you to move to Dupara with me.”
Her breath stills. “What?”
“I want you to move to Dupara with me.” I keep my lips in a hard line despite my muscles fighting a smile. She needs to understand how serious I am about this. I’m not lost in lust, and I’m not making this decision without a clear head—there’s no doubt in my mind that she is for me.
“You don’t think this is too soon?”
I tighten the arm that’s securely around her body, pulling her even closer. “No.”
Piper draws her head back, capturing my mouth with hers. “Wow,” she mumbles into my lips before releasing me. “This is crazy, you know that?”
“Yes, I do. But that’s why I trust it.”
Her shoulders rise with a deep inhale. “There are so many things I’d have to get sorted out with work—and the girls are going to freak out, but yes, of course I will!”