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“Neither do I,” I tell him, honestly.
He pulls his face back and looks me in the eyes. “But I want it to be like this,” he says. “I want it to feel like this.”
My eyes well up as I smile at him. “Me too.”
Then I’m kissing him and he’s kissing me back and it’s everything. All the things we just said, all the things we still need to say—it’s all there as he holds me close to him, our mouths moving together.
“I won, by the way,” I tell him, after several minutes of making out, his lips now peppering kisses along my jaw and then down my neck.
“You won?” I feel his breath on my neck, and it sends shivers down my spine.
“The challenge,” I say. He stops his steady kisses and moves so he’s looking at me.
“What was the final score?”
“I don’t know,” I say, lifting a shoulder and dropping it. “Morgan said you lost all your points after Tuesday.”
He dips his chin, one time. “That’s fair.”
“So get ready for uterus and fallopian tube scrubs, Doctor.”
He smiles, big and wide, giving me a look filled with so much affection.
“So,” Graham says, that grin still on his face. “Are you going to give me a shot, Price?”
I pretend to think about it for a second, placing an index finger on my chin. “Just remember who kissed who first, Shackwell.”
He laughs before placing his hands on either side of my face and kissing me again.
Graham
New Year’s Day, One Year Later
“RYAN, YOU FREAKING SOGGY TOILET paper roll!” Lucy yells as she gets up from her parents’ couch. I get up too, and from behind I grab her by the waist, keeping her from lunging at her brother. I’ve done this before, plenty of times since Lucy and I started dating and subsequently spending more time with her family.
Thankfully, the Price family welcomed me back with open arms. Especially Lucy’s parents, Yvonne and Ron, who instantly started treating me like I’d never left, like I was one of theirs, as they did all those years ago. Kyle is the only reluctant family member, although things are getting better there, I think. I don’t know if we’ll ever be the best friends we once were, but I’m hopeful. Either way, he’s no longer against Lucy and me being together, which is enough for right now.
“Don’t wake up Caden and Milly,” Derek says, sitting on the couch across from us, his arm around the shoulders of his very pregnant wife. Kyle and Carrie are next to them, both nodding their heads in agreement.
Lucy’s niece and nephew unenthusiastically went to bed an hour ago, with Kyle dragging a yelling Caden out of the room while he called those of us that stayed up “toilet poopy faces”.
“Luce, it’s just charades,” Ryan says, getting up from the couch Lucy and I had been seated on, his lips cocked into a smirk. Since dating Lucy and spending more time with her family, I’ve learned that Ryan mostly cheats to annoy his sister and not to win the game. He doesn’t care about winning half as much as the frustrated woman in my arms does.
“You’re a cheater,” Lucy says, lunging toward Ryan, but I hold her back, keeping my hands on her waist.
“Okay, okay, you two,” Yvonne says, shaking her head as she gets up from one of the two lounge chairs. Her husband Ron is sitting in the other one. “The game was nearly over anyway and it’s almost midnight. Come on Ron, I need you to open the champagne.”
“Right behind you,” Ron says, as he gets up to follow his wife. He pats me on the shoulder as he walks by, a gesture of support as I keep ahold of his daughter.
“So we won, right?” Lucy yells after her mom, who doesn’t bother answering her.
I pull her toward me, nuzzling my face into her neck and placing a soft kiss there. She immediately turns around and wraps her arms around my neck.
“We definitely won,” she says, looking up at me.
“Oh, for sure,” I say, not really knowing what the score was. All I know is I’ve been playing charades on New Year’s Eve, something old me would have never in a million years considered on such a night. But honestly, it’ll probably end up being one of my favorite traditions, spending the holiday here with Lucy and her family. And bonus, I haven’t had one drink, so I’ll remember all of it. Another thing old me would find shocking.
The man I used to be is more of a stranger these days, someone I can hardly believe ever existed. My life feels so different now. I still work at the clinic, the ER, and the spa, but my time off is spent with a blonde-haired beauty who has a fiercely competitive streak and makes me laugh every day.
