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How did I get so lucky?
I drew him in and brushed my lips across his. “Pretty sure I can make it worth your while to hang around while I get my shit together.”
His soft laugh made my heart flutter. “Being with you is always worth my while.” He kissed me before I could make any kind of self-deprecating remark about that.
And whatever remark I’d thought to make dissipated into nothing.
Yeah, I did need to start listening to him and not to the people who’d convinced me I was unworthy. In this case, Tanner’s opinion really was the only one that mattered, and I needed to take that at face value instead of doing something stupid like driving him away by constantly making him prove himself.
Tanner loved me. I loved him.
We had two weeks together in Hawaii. The rest of the summer together in his hometown in Colorado. When the school year and hockey season started, we’d have to be apart a lot, but we already knew how to roll with that.
And lying here with him now, holding him close and kissing him, I believed he wanted to spend that time with me. That he’d miss me when he was on the road just like I’d miss him, and that he’d be as eager to come home to me as I was to have him home.
It would still take a long time to fully shake off my ex’s poison.
But listening to Tanner’s voice over Keith’s seemed like a damn good start to me.
Epilogue
Tanner
About eighteen monthslater
Rememberwhen I said it would be romantic as hell to be “stuck” in a hotel with Isaiah at Niagara Falls during a freak snowstorm?
Yeah.
About that.
Staring out the sliding glass door of our condo at the growing snowdrifts in the parking lot below, I sighed. “Well. So much for that idea.”
Isaiah’s transparent reflection appeared in the glass a second before he wrapped his arms around me and kissed the side of my neck. “Eh. We’ll make up for it during the off season. The weather will probably be more cooperative anyway.”
He was probably right. And we’d known when we’d booked the trip that it was a gamble. It was February now, and the weather was predictably unpredictable. That was why we’d planned to fly instead of drive—it was only like four hours by car, but flying had seemed less likely to turn into quite as much of a nightmare as driving could.
I just hadn’t expected the freak snowstorm to happen in Pittsburgh, not Niagara or even Buffalo.
But here we were—our suitcases still parked beside the front door, both our cars buried under a thick blanket of white. Our flight hadn’t been delayed or canceled—yet—but unless one of us invented teleportation in the next couple of hours, we weren’t getting to the airport. We were both perfectly competent when it came to driving in the snow, and we both had tons of experience navigating through it. Which was exactly why we’d agreed not to chance it—because we were both experienced enough to know it was way too dangerous out there right now.
So much for that amazing view of the falls our hotel had promised.
He was right, though—we could try again in the off season.
I turned around in his arms and slid my hands up his chest. “Well, we could always turn this into a staycation.”
Isaiah smiled, drawing me in closer. “I like that idea.”
“Do you?”
“Mmhmm.” He brushed his lips across mine. “And with as much as you’ve been traveling lately, I don’t imagine you’re too heartbroken about taking a break from airports for a few days.”
Okay, when he put it like that…
I exhaled. “You’re right. I just didn’t want to disappoint you.”
“Tanner.” He laughed softly, carding his fingers through my hair. “There is nothing disappointing about shutting out the rest of the world and just hanging out with you for a few days.”
