“Hi,” she murmurs against my mouth.
I steal one more quick kiss before finally looking up.
“Mrs. Wentworth.”
“Levi!” Eloise smiles warmly. “Glad you’re back.”
“Mr. Wentworth.”
Samuel nods back with an easy smile, his attention drifting fondly toward his wife and daughter before returning to me.
“Good to see you, son.”
Cece lightly hooks her fingers around mine.
“You okay?” she asks so quietly that only I hear it. “Should we go home and talk?”
Home.
She still calls my apartmenthome.
One day, Levi.
One day.
I smile before leaning down to kiss the tip of her scrunched nose. “I’m okay, baby.”
I squeeze her arm gently. And she immediately answers by wrapping both arms around my waist and burying herself against me.
I can’t help laughing softly, my voice muffled by her hair.
“I’m okay,” I whisper. “I promise.”
She lingers for another second before leaning back to study my face.
Whatever she’s looking for, she finds it. Because the tiny crease between her brows disappears.
Why wouldn’t I be okay?
The woman I love is standing in my arms.
Her parents are finally learning to love her the way she has always deserved.
Life has a funny way of putting things into perspective.
“So, Levi,” Eloise says, folding her arms with a teasing smile, “I’m hoping you haven’t accidentally put laundry detergent pods in your dishwasher this time?”
A groan escapes me before I can stop it.
“Mrs. Wentworth…”
“Oh, he did it one better. He flooded the apartment because—“ Cece says innocently. “Well, you tell her.”
“It was because you got that—that dishwasher liquid. How am I supposed to know the difference when they’rebothliquids?!”
“You read the label, babe,” Cece deadpans.
Ah, fuck.
