Chapter 50
“These next few years will be difficult, Mr. Olsson.” Professor Callahan eyes me over the rim of his glasses, taking a moment to appraise me. “For many reasons,” he adds ominously.
“I’m ready for a change, Professor,” I reply. “Something has to change.”
He nods, as if I said the right thing. “Change will be good for you, Mr. Olsson.” He pauses. “I’m proud of you.”
I want to be proud of me, too. “Thanks, Professor.”
With the help of several people, I am finally kissing Bex again.
Callahan didn’t take much convincing—that man loves love—but I did feel kind of bad about kicking Grant out of his own final scene. Callahan agreed to let him do a monologue instead of a scene like everyone else. He performed it earlier this morning and did a kick ass job—I’m glad he transferred into the program.
Luci and Riz were easy to persuade, too, both alluding to the fact that Bex seemed as miserable as I was without her.
As much as I don’t want to stop kissing Bex, I also realize we are in front of the class I used to teach and should probably rein it in. I pull back and she lets out a whimper that instantly makes me half hard. Another thing I would not like to happen in front of a crowd. “Let’s get out of here,” I say, unable to resist one last peck.
“Okay,” she nods.
“Okay,” I smile.
We make our way out of the theater, into the perfect spring day, and over to my car, stumbling the whole way. Stopping to kiss, stopping to laugh—God, I’ve missed her laugh—stopping to breathe each other in.
“Where are we going?” she asks when we get in the car, as if the thought just occurred to her.
“Back to yours. I have something for you.”
Her teeth sink into her lower lip, biting back a grin as she shakes her head.
“No? Is that not okay?”
“It is! I just… I can’t believe you’re here. I mean, I wanted you to be here but—I was definitely not expecting that.”
“That’s kind of the point of a grand gesture,” I tease.
“Yeah, but you hi-jacked my grand gesture! I was trying to grand gesture you and you swooped in and outdid me!”
Reaching over, I lace her fingers with mine. And then, because I can’t control myself, I lean over the console and place six kisses across her collar bone. I feel her sigh reverberate through my bones before she pushes me off with a rushed, “Wait!”
“Well, I wasn’t planning on taking you in the car. Though…”
She scoffs. “That sounds extremely uncomfortable!” I watch as her face shifts into something serious. “I want to talk. Can we talk first?”
“Of course, Baby Bardot.”
Bex opens the apartment door and I hear her gasp. I guess that means Luci and Riz have worked their magic. I step in and—“Damn.”
Bex’s gaze swings toward me. “You didn’t do this?”
“Well, it definitely was my idea, but your best friends obviously love you because they went above and beyond on this one.” I don’t want to give them all the credit, but I’ll give them a lot of it.
The apartment looks amazing. I had them set up a special Margarita Monday for the two of us, even though it’s the middle of the day. I figured they’d order the take-out I requested and leave a few canned margaritas in the fridge for Bex. Instead, the kitchen table is covered in a table cloth, actual nice plates are set out, and several vases of flowers are scattered about. There’s a piece of paper propped up in a trifold with the words, food is staying warm in the oven, drinks are in the fridge, enjoy lovebirds! scribbled on it.
Sure enough, the food is waiting in glass serving containers in the oven, and there are pitchers of clearly marked alcoholic and non-alcoholic margaritas in the fridge, which is such a thoughtful gesture that I almost tear up.
I plate food for both of us and return to the table to find a nervous Bex. Setting the plates down, my gaze meets hers, ready for whatever she’s willing to give.
“We have a lot of catching up to do…” she starts.
“I can agree with that. I’ve missed the hell out of you these past few weeks.”
“I couldn’t tell by your texts,” she smirks.
“They might have been a little aggressive,” I snort. “But I stand by everything I said.”
“I know you do,” she whispers. “And I am really sorry I pushed you away, for what it’s worth.”
“It’s worth everything. I get it. I mean, I don’t understand everything that happened, but I am glad you’re here now. That we are talking about this now.”
A small smile curves her lips. “I got the job.”
It takes me a second to figure out what she’s talking about but then it clicks. “Oh shit! The job with SchoolsFirst? That’s amazing! That means… that means you’ll be in the city next year?” I can hear the hope seeping into my voice.
Bex nods before taking a bite off of her plate. She contemplates her next words as she’s chewing.
“Your mom is actually the one who convinced me to take it.”
My mom?
“As in… Alice?”
“Do you have another mom?” she quips.
“How… how was she…”
Bex points her chopsticks at me. “That is exactly how I felt after running into her in the bathroom at my final lunch with Claudette and the staff! She totally threw me!” She hesitates. “But she also made it seem as if she was on my side. Well, your side, more specifically, but—I’m not sure how to describe it…” Her eyes grow sad. “There was almost a—a solidarity in her actions? As if, this isn’t the first time your dad has crossed a line.”
“This is definitely not the first time Erik has crossed a line,” I scowl. My blood still boils when I think about that man getting anywhere near Bex. “I should have been there.”
She pushes back from the table, rounding it before motioning for me to push my chair back as well. Her leg comes over my lap so she’s straddling me, her forehead meeting mine so she’s all I see. My hands skate up her thighs and around to her ass, giving a playful squeeze. I can finally breathe for the first time in two weeks now that she’s here.
“There is nothing you could have done to prevent it. And maybe… maybe we can do a restraining order or something. I’m still processing through all of that, but I know that it’s not your fault.” Her hands come up to bracket my face. “Do you hear me? It was not your fault.”
I nod against her forehead as relief sweeps through me. I can work with this. We can move forward together, finally.
“I got a job too,” I say, sensing Bex’s need to be done with this for now.
She pulls back so she can look me in the eye. “Of course you did. You’re Anders fucking Olsson—who wouldn’t want you?!”
I squeeze her ass again because I can’t help it. “But only you get to have me.”
“Of course I do. I’m your Baby Bardot.” She winks. “What’s the job?”
“Funnily enough, I’ll be doing a Shakespeare festival in upstate New York for the summer, but I also have several interested agents that I’ve been too distracted to sift through.”
“Don’t worry, I can help you run lines now. I took an acting class in college once and had an excellent teacher.”
“Ugh,” I groan. “I was your TA! You can’t go around telling people that that’s how we met. And that’s not even how we met!” I’m riled up now.
“Whatever you say, teach.”
“Dear God. You’re going to make this a thing, aren’t you?”
“For your information, I was talking about Professor Callahan. He’s an excellent acting teacher!”
Now her ass gets a slap. “You are such a brat!”
“You love it,” she leans in for a kiss.
“I love you,” I retort, slotting my mouth back over hers.
The push and pull of her tongue is extremely distracting. As is the way she’s grinding down on my lap. So much so that I almost forget the last part of my surprise. “Wait,” I say, pulling her face away from mine.
“I don’t want to wait,” she murmurs, kissing up and down my throat and across my jaw. “Waited long enough,” she mumbles.
“I have a present for you, though.” That gets her attention.
“I love presents.” She does a little clap-shimmy move that has me distracted again. I lift her off of my lap before I decide to throw her over my shoulder and haul her back to the bedroom.
Grabbing the bag from the backpack I abandoned by the door, I walk back over to her and place it on the table. She doesn’t wait for permission before tearing into it and pulling out the ceramic fortune cookie she gave me the night of my showcase.
“I don’t think you even realized, but when you ran from Erik you dropped the bag with this in it. He gave it back to me before I—well, before I came to find you but by that point it had cracked, and when I pulled it out after you left, it completely split in two. It took lots of glue and some patience but… I loved what it symbolized. And I wanted us to have it. So I guess I’m kind of re-gifting it, but it seemed romantic and now I’m rambling and you’re just staring at it.”
When she looks up at me, tears are in her eyes. I immediately kneel down beside her. “No, baby. Don’t cry. Is it terrible? Here, just put it back—”
She yanks it out of my reach. “I love it. I thought I had lost it and now it’s here. I thought I had lost you and now you’re here. I—I love it.”
I nuzzle into her neck, needing to be near her. “There’s a fortune inside for you,” I mutter, unreasonably nervous about this part.
“An unexpected relationship will become permanent,” she reads, slight confusion crossing her face.
“I actually… uh, well, I’ve had this fortune since the day we ran into each other again—that first day of class.”
Bex shoots up from the chair and hurries out of the room which is exactly the opposite reaction I had hoped she would have. “Bex! Wait. Please, okay I know that’s maybe coming on strong but…” I trail off as I get to the door of her bedroom. She’s reaching over to the small bulletin board above her desk, unpinning what looks like… “A fortune?”
When she turns back to me, there are tears freely falling. “I have one too,” she whispers.
“One what? Wait… you have a fortune? What does it say?” Suddenly, every cell in my body needs to know what that fortune says.
She hands it to me. “I got it the night before we ran into each other at the coffee shop. I have no idea what possessed me to keep it but I’m so glad I did.”
I look down and read the fortune. The love of your life will appear in front of you unexpectedly.
“Holy shit,” I mumble. “You know what this means, right?”
I step over to her as she shakes her head. Our lips meet as I lay her down on her bed, my body needing hers. She is the love of my life and I want to show her. Need her to know that whether it was fate or chance or an invisible string between us, I’m hers. This is it for me.
“I’m yours, Bex. And you’re mine. No matter how unexpected this is, I’m yours,” I repeat. “If you’ll have me?”
She looks at me with such tenderness, gentleness—love. “I’m yours,” she says between kisses. “Unexpectedly. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
And all I can think as we continue to show each other just how much we missed being together is, neither would I.