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His arms tighten defensively around me, but he doesn’t say a word.
“All these years, nothing else has ever mattered to me.” This is the hardest part to get out, and my throat closes. I squeeze my eyes shut and pretend I’m not telling him these things at all. “And when I met you, I hated you so much I wanted it even more.”
“You are the most stubborn person I’ve ever met,” he murmurs against my ear, that same hand tracing the shell in movements that send tickling delight through me.
I lean back so I can see his face. “But now I don’t even care. I’ve finally found something I want more.”
He wipes under my eyes and I resolve not to tell him this week has involved a lot of crying. “Is that right?”
I’m not sure what it means. “My being right doesn’t mean you are wrong.”
He shrugs. “Does that mean we actually agree on something?”
I nod, easing back out of his arms so I can look at him properly. “Don’t let it go to your head.”
He laughs and spreads his hands. “If we put as much work into us as we did into getting that partnership, I don’t see how we can fail.”
This is probably the point I should say something, but I’m just opening and closing my mouth like a fish sucking air.
“I want to be with you. Always. Forever,” he tells me, more of that warmness in his eyes, voice, spilling out until it drowns me, and I willingly drown in it. “I didn’t realize how much until I almost lost you.”
I swallow. “Forever?”
“I promise. And I don’t go back on my promises.”
This is a dream. It has to be a dream. “What about Chicago?” I manage.
“The city’s been there awhile. I think it will survive just fine without me.”
“And the job…?”
He shrugs. “It’s great. There’s no doubt about it. But I turned it down. It’s not you.”
I have to be dreaming. I need to pinch myself.
“I love you,” he says, and his face has lost its smile. He’s deadly serious as he looks at me. “I know I do. And I don’t care where we are. If it’s in a tent by the beach, that’s fine with me. As long as we’re together.”
“I’m going to cry again,” I warn him, fighting my trembling lips. He pulls me into him for a second time and I let him.
He chuckles, the sound reverberating through his chest.
“You’re such an ass,” I tell him, my eyes brimming again. But this time—and it feels insane it can be in so short a time—it’s from happiness. Brooks has my heart, and though I know that the future is uncertain, I trust him with it. I trust him to take care of it as if it were his own. “But I love you, too. You stubborn, idiotic—”
He kisses me. I taste my tears, the salt mingling with the mint of his toothpaste. His lips are gentle. His fingers linger on my chin, tilting my face up to his, tightening his arms around my waist, holding me to him so close that I lose track of where I end and he begins.
Maybe this is what love is supposed to feel like.
“You know, I can help you. With the contracts for your new place? I am an attorney, after all,” he murmurs against my mouth.
“Tempting. But unnecessary. Did you forget I’m one, too?” I tease back.
“Hmm. You may be… but I don’t think it’s yet been proven, which of us is the better one… ?”
Oh not that again. I tug his face back down to mine, unable to help smiling against his lips. “Just shut up and kiss me.”
42
“We’ll definitely be in touch,” the hiring manager at Milton and Ray says to me as I shake her hand.
“It was a pleasure,” I tell her, giving her a firm handshake and making eye contact, before spinning to head out the doors.
I’ve been on enough interviews to know when a job is in the bag. Actually, I’m a great interviewer. I’ve never not gotten a position I’ve interviewed for. There’s just something that clicks, and I have to say, this one with the panel of partners was stellar, probably my best performance yet. We’d laughed, bantered, and I’d already felt like one of the team.
Swinging my briefcase as I walk, I head down to Commercial Street, and a little café on the wharf with outdoor seating. I spot Tenley at once, sitting at a table in the corner, wearing dark sunglasses, her warm brown hair waving in the breeze. A smile lights up her face as I approach and slip into the plastic chair next to her.
“That was fast! How did it go?”
“It’s a definite,” I say surely, taking a gulp from my water goblet.
She gives me an incredulous look. “How can you say that?” Then she laughs. “Forget it. I know. Everyone just loves you.”
