Page 96 of View With Your Heart

“I used the last condom in my wallet on this girl about two weeks ago.” He reaches for the button on my shorts and undoes it.

I laugh. “Lucky girl.”

He shakes his head, shifting to tug my shorts and underwear down my legs. Staring down at my naked body, he says, “Nope. I’m a damn lucky man. You’re so fucking beautiful, Candy.”

As he moves lower on my body, spreading my thighs, I know what comes next, but I still have something to say.

“I’m not on the pill. Aren’t you worried I’ll get pregnant?” It’s something I should have told him long ago.

He looks up at me while his fingers lazily slip through slick folds, more than ready and eager for his attention.

“Is it wrong that I want it to happen? I want the full experience this time, Brit. You with my baby in your belly and then the birth. The baby times. All of it.”

“You don’t think I’m too old.” I’m thirty-six.

“We’re young, Brit, and we’re just getting started.” His mouth lowers between my thighs, and the discussion is done as he consumes me until I see stars.

Tugging his towel free of his waist, he moves up my body and hovers over me. The tip of him drags through the wet mess he made of me, and he looks down at his thickness, ready to enter me.

“I love you,” he tells me as he used to say every time before we did this as teens.

“I love you, too.” He slides into me, taking his time to fill me and lowering the rest of his body to cover mine.

“Jess Carter once told me home wasn’t a place but a person or two.” This doesn’t seem like the time to discuss Jess, but I like the rest of what he’s said. Gavin swipes back my hair, brushing it behind my ear, and watches his fingers coast along my neck.

“You’re my person. My home. You and Gee, and I don’t ever want to live anywhere else.”

Happy tears fill my eyes as his gaze meets mine.

“Then welcome home, Gavin,” I whisper before my breath catches. He moves slowly, dragging back before rushing forward.

“It’s so good to be home,” he teases, but he isn’t joking. Happiness fills us as we’re finally back together and with each other, where we were always meant to be.

Epilogue

Scene: The Theater

Seven months later

[Gavin]

“I now pronounce you, man and wife,” the minister announces, and before he can tell me I can kiss the bride, I’m doing it. Dipping Britton back, I give her a kiss straight out of those romantic movies she likes, letting everyone know this woman is finally mine.

Twenty years ago, I met a girl and fell in love with her.

Thirteen years ago, I spent the weekend having sex with her.

And seven months after seeing her again, I finally got to marry her.

Our friends and family erupt into cheers, and Britton and I finally stand upright, looking out at the gathering in the old movie theater of Elk Lake City. We decided to marry where it all started. Ceiling tins are missing, and entire sections of seats are gone, but the place has character and holds our history. It’s the perfect location for this production—our wedding.

Britton and I race up the aisle, laughing before we get to the small lobby. We served mini bags of popcorn and packets of red licorice to our guests during the ceremony. Someone chucks popcorn at us, and I have a strong suspicion it was Ethan. He can still be such a child, but as my best man, I told him there’s no one else I’d want standing next to me, and I promise to do better to be there for him.

The reception will be under a tent in Uncle Leo’s yard—now our yard.

I paid off that costly tax bill, giving Sterling Realty even less fuel to badger Britton about selling. In addition, we’ll be breaking ground in a month on a newer house, building up and around the old one in order to keep the memory of Leo and Gertie but provide us space for a one-day growing family.

We take several pictures in and outside the theater, where I’m reminded of Jess and Emily’s wedding and the million poses taken that day. Dad requests a photograph of Karyn, Ethan, and me, refusing to enter the picture himself.