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“Come in, we have so much to talk about.” She welcomes me into her townhome, a breathtaking display of archways and stone, chandeliers and extravagant furniture. “Will your team be based in California?”
She walks ahead of me, and although I can’t see her face, the brief tremor in her voice is impossible to miss.
I’ve been contemplating moving back to New York. Not just for Lily, but to be here for my brother and help out with his new family, the same way he has been there for me my entire life.
I want to continue being the reliable man I’ve grown to be this summer and be there for the people I love.
“It’s up to me,” I say. “I can choose to make a home base anywhere I want. Actually, before I got here, I was touring a condo nearby.”
We make our way into the kitchen, and I settle on a stool at the expansive island. Lily slides into the seat next to mine, her fingers playing with the bracelet I gave her for her birthday, right beside the almost-torn strings from the one in Rio.
She’s still wearing them.
“Luca mentioned that you were thinking about moving back to New York, but I wasn’t sure if that was true,” she says.
“The four-bedroom I saw at 23 East 72nd Streetwasquite nice. It may be hard to convince me to go back to California after seeing such a fancy-schmancy place.” I try to sound as casual as possible, not wanting to get my hopes up; the news may excite her, but maybe it’ll frighten her.
“What? We’re inside of 24 East 72nd Street.”
“Yeah, I guess that might make us neighbors.”
Panic floods me immediately. Maybe I overstepped.
“Nico, I—I’m so sorry,” she whispers. “I love you, and—”
The words I’ve waited six long weeks to hear.
“Huh?” My heart trembles.
“I—fuck. That’s not at all how I planned to say that. I have a whole thing written out—”
“I love you too.”
I reach over to her chair, clasping her hand in mine. I cover each of her fingers with kisses, her wrist, our matching tattoo, and up the length of her arm until her lips and mine are one again.
This kiss feels like a final homecoming, familiar and sweet.
She unhooks herself from me and smiles. I try to not fall apart, but I do, like I always will.
“Nico, I want to tell you how sorry I am for the way I treated you this summer. You grew so much these past few months while I remained the same.”
“Hey, you—”
Her hands squeeze mine. “Please, let me finish. I’ve been doing a lot of healing over the past six weeks and I want to thank you for giving me the space to do that. I hadn’t quite realized how much I was running away from this summer—fuck, the majority of my adult life. I completely lost sight of how to cope with things.”
A weight drops onto my shoulders, cementing me into the room. “I get that, Lil. Honestly, after having some time to reflect, I realized I was so wrapped up in you being my first love that I wasn’t truly hearing what you were asking of me. I wanted us to work despite everything you were feeling, but it was unrealistic.”
Her bottom lip works between the clasp of her teeth, and she peers up at me beneath her lashes. “I appreciate you saying that, but it also wasn’t right to deny my feelings for you. Iwasafraid, but putting up walls hurt you, and I’m sorry.”
Warmth works its way into my veins, melting away the tension in my limbs. The time apart has obviously been extremely helpful for her if she’s been able to piece together so many stray parts of herself. “I can’t quite explain how much it means to hear you say that.”
“I mean every word. You urged me to take a risk this summer, and it was the best thing to ever happen to me. I don’t want to live my life being afraid of love or of loving you, even when things aren’t going according to one of my carefully-crafted plans.”
“Thank you, Lily, honestly.”
She brings my palm to her jaw and seals her lips there for a few moments.
“There’s one more thing,” she says.
