Page 95

She searches my face, looking for the catch. I let her look. I'm not going to make promises about what happens after winter break or pretend I know how this fits into the life she's trying to put back together. I only know that I crossed an ocean to stand in front of her, and if she tells me she wants me to leave, I'll leave.

But I need her to know why I'm here.

"I didn't come to make you decide anything," I say. "I came because I wanted to see you. I wanted to know if this—" I glance down at the space between us, her hand still in mine. "If we still feel like this in person."

She looks at our joined hands.

"And do we?" she asks quietly.

I brush my thumb over her knuckles.

"You tell me."

She steps closer, her other hand settling against my jaw. Her gaze drops to my mouth, then returns to my eyes.

Instead of answering, she kisses me.

It's not tentative. She rises onto her toes and pulls me down to her, and I meet her halfway, one arm wrapping around her waist as the other comes up to hold her face. I kiss her like I've been thinking about it for weeks, because I have.

I kiss her until the café noise fades, the cold outside, the losing streaks, the games, and every mile between us disappear beneath the simple fact that she's here, kissing me back.

When she pulls away, her forehead rests against my chin, and she whispers, "I don't want you to leave yet.”

I close my eyes for a second. “Then I'm not leaving yet."

She smiles, small and unsteady, and leans back into me.

CHAPTER 17

CAFE

Anna

His arms close around me, one hand spreading between my shoulder blades, the other cradling the back of my head. I feel his breath against my hair. I feel his solid warmth, the familiar shape of his body, and something inside me gives way.

He's really here.

Not a face on a screen. Not a voice coming through my phone when the house is quiet and I can pretend, for a little while, that the rest of my life doesn't exist.

Him.

I squeeze my eyes shut because I'm dangerously close to crying, and I refuse to start sobbing in the middle of a café. I have no idea what I'd do if I started. I don't know if I'd be able to stop.

So, I keep hugging him.

I don't care that people are looking. I don't care that we're standing beside a table with two coffees waiting to be collected. I don't care that I probably look ridiculous, clinging to a man I haven't seen in weeks as if someone might take him away if I loosen my arms.

Maybe that's exactly how it feels.

He presses his face into my hair, and I feel his chest rise beneath my cheek. His arms tighten around me just enough to tell me he isn't in any hurry to let go, either.

"You’re still here," I whisper, because apparently my brain has abandoned every other sentence it could use.

"Yeah, fancy girl."

His voice is so close, so familiar, that I nearly lose it again.

I pull back to look at him, but I can't seem to put any real distance between us. My hands stay curled in his jacket. I need to see him, to take in the details my phone never quite captured. The faint shadows beneath his eyes. The little crease between his brows. The way his mouth curves when he looks at me, like he's trying to keep his expression under control and failing.