Page 99 of The Apparent Trap

“Ladies!” Debbie the floor director calls, poking her head into the room and aiming her stare at Carmen and Georgia. “I need you to take your places on set, please.”

They look at the time and immediately get up.

“Glad you’re here, Lee,” Carmen says, patting his shoulder as she walks out. It’s hard not to adore how much he beams at the simple affection.

When the room is empty, I wrap myself around Lee again, stunned that he’s in front of me and wanting to keep him as close as possible. “Okay, but seriously, how did you get here?”

“There’s this amazing technology called an airplane—”

I swat at him. “You know what I mean.”

“I’m not sure I do.”

“You came to watch some Olympics?”

There’s that look again. “If I admit I couldn’t care less about the Olympics, will you and Carmen disown me?”

“Debatable,” I say with a laugh. “Seriously. This is a long way to come for no reason.”

His expression grows serious, and he pushes a curl behind my ear, like he’s been waiting until he was allowed. “It wasn’t for no reason. I needed to tell you something.”

“You couldn’t just wait until I got back next week?”

He shakes his head. “I was missing you. And I realized something, and I was going to wait. But you and I both have done a lot of waiting in our lives, and I don’t want to accept that anymore when I don’t have to.”

I have no idea where he’s going with this. I’m still a little shocked to see him standing in front of me when I was expecting to just watch the show and then (admittedly) try to catch the curling finals. But having this man in front of me? Way better.

“What did you realize?” I ask.

“So, a few months ago we had a talk where you said you liked me.”

I smile. “Yes, I recall.”

“Well, I was thinking about it, and I realized . . . I love you too.”

I still. “Not just ‘like’?”

He laughs, and so do I because it’s such a ridiculous response.

“No, but don’t minimize the liking!” he says.

“I wasn’t but—”

He puts a finger to my lips. “Seriously. Don’t minimize that part, because being liked is a perfect thing. There’s a lot of people I love who I don’t like very much. Liking isn’t required for love. Liking is its own special category. So I’m not giving that word up, but it’s just not the only word I can use for you anymore. I love you, Ezzie. I love you so much that sometimes I look at you and it’s hard to breathe.”

“But you weren’t looking at me,” I squeak out. “You were in New York.”

He laughs again, the most beautiful sound I know. “No, but apparently it’s also hard to breathe without you too. So I figured I’d come tell you while it was on my mind.”

“You flew all the way back to Sweden to tell me you love me?”

“Damn right,” he says, and then he kisses me, and it’s home. He kisses me like he’s already kissed me a thousand times but intends to do it ten thousand more.

I could kiss him forever.

I’m going to forever.

And I realize the only thing that could make me stop.