"I love you," she blurts out.
She doesn't plan it. I can tell by the way her eyes widen slightly after the words come out, like she surprised herself. Three words, quiet and certain, while she holds a bag of frozen peas against my jaw in the bathroom of a houseboat on Lake Union.
Everything in me goes still. The words she just said light up my fucking spine.
"I love you too." My voice sounds like gravel, but I don't care. "I've loved you since the first time I saw you skate, Mollie. I just didn't know how to say it without losing everything."
She smiles. It's small and wobbly and perfect. She leans down and kisses me, gentle because my lip is split. I pull her closer with my good hand.
"Come to bed," she murmurs against my mouth. She straightens up and pulls her sweater over her head, tossing it on the bathroom floor. Her bra is pale pink, her skin is flushed, and she's looking at me with dark eyes. "I think you need to stop thinking for a while."
"Is that your professional opinion?"
"It's my girlfriend opinion." She backs out of the bathroom, reaching behind herself to unclasp her bra. It drops from her fingers in the hallway. "And my girlfriend opinion says that you should follow me right now."
Oh yeah. I’m definitely marrying this girl, whether she likes it or not. She has no choice.
I follow her. My jaw throbs and my hand aches. But right now, she's walking backward toward our bedroom, her red curls swaying, her fingers finding the button of her jeans. The look on her face says that she knows exactly what she's doing to me.
My phone rings from downstairs.
I freeze on the landing. Mollie stops, her jeans half unzipped, and we both look toward the stairs.
"Leave it," she says.
I should. I know I should. But my agent's ringtone is specific and the sound of it turns my blood cold.
"One second." I jog down the stairs and grab the phone off the counter. "Yeah?"
My agent talks for ninety seconds. I listen without interrupting. When he's done, I hang up and stand in the kitchen with the phone in my hand.
Mollie is at the top of the stairs, leaning on the railing. "What is it?"
"Savard retained a lawyer. He's filing assault charges and a civil suit. Management wants me in the building at eight tomorrow." I swallow. "And my agent says they're talking about termination."
She comes down the stairs, takes the phone from my hand, and sets it face down on the counter. Then she looks at me.
"Can you do anything about it right now?"
"No."
"Can your agent?"
"He's already on it."
"Then it waits until morning." She takes my good hand and pulls. "You know what doesn't wait?"
"Freckles." I huff a sigh.
"The woman who just told you she loves you won’t wait." She tugs me toward the stairs. "You owe me, Alex Thorne. I was very brave today and I deserve to be rewarded."
"Rewarded how?"
Her eyes flash. "Use your imagination."
I let her lead me upstairs. The phone sits on the counter, dark and silent, holding tomorrow's catastrophe in its little glass screen. Savard wants blood. Management wants answers. My career might be over in twelve hours.
But Mollie is pulling me into our bedroom with her hand in mine, her jeans sliding off her hips. I can still feel those three words vibrating in my chest.
