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I can’t believe it. I’m overjoyed. I sit up in bed, quaking with adrenaline. “What are you doing here? Why didn’t you just text to ask my room number when you got here?”
“Because I was trying to surprise you.”
I laugh. That’s so Auggie. I quickly give him my room number and sprint to my door and then stand in the doorframe, trembling with anticipation. A few minutes later, there he is. Augustus Vaughn. Sprinting down the hallway toward my room.
“I can’t believe you’re here!” I shout, as he draws closer to me.
When he reaches me, he wastes no time. He takes me in his arms and presses his lips to mine. My heart soars as Auggie kisses me. It’s only been a week since I’ve tasted his sweet kiss and smelled his glorious aftershave, but it’s felt like a lifetime. A gray, drab, lonely, sad, pointless lifetime.
“We have a lot to talk about,” he says breathlessly. He leads me into my hotel room and the heavy door clanks behind us. “But first off, I need to tell you something. Somethingurgent.” He holds my face and looks deeply into my eyes. “I love you, Charlotte McDougal. With all my heart and soul. Forever and always. There’s nobody else for me.”
Tears prick my eyes. “I love you, too. Forever and always, too.”
He looks shocked. “You do?”
I laugh. “You flew all the way across the country, not knowing if I’d say I love you back?”
“Well, I was hoping. But you signed that note ‘withlove.’ It felt like you were reserving plausible deniability.”
I crack up. “I’ve been regretting my word choice, ever since. Let me set the record straight now.Love, Charlotte.Please. BecauseIlove you. So much, it hurts.”
“I love you so much, it feels like my heart is going to physically burst.”
“I wantallmy strings attached to you, Auggie. I want to be a team again. But for real. In life.”
“That’s all I want, too. I’ll apply to vet schools in New York. There are several to try. And if I’m not successful at first—”
“No, you don’t have to do that.” I grab his hand. “Thank you for offering, but I don’t want to start my new job tomorrow. I thought I did. I thought this job was everything I could ever want. But when I got to Dallas, my world felt gray and drab and pointless without you. I realizedyou’rethe most important ingredient to my happiness. I’ll figure out the rest. The only thing that matters now is that I’m with you.”
Auggie looks deeply touched. Like he’s working hard to stem the tide of emotion rising inside him. He chokes out, “Are you saying you’ll come back to Seattle with me? The condo is still yours, by the way. We can pick up right where we left off.”
“No, the condo is yours. But I’d love to live with you at your place while you sell it or rent it out, if you’ll have me.”
He exhales. “I want nothing more than to live with you. I can’t stand being apart from you. But I don’t want you coming to live with me because you think you don’t have anywhere else to go. The condo is yours, Charlotte. None of that paperwork is legally enforceable. And even if it were, I’d undo the transfer and give the place right back to you.”
I already knew Lloyd’s wishes weren’t legally enforceable, thanks to a couple google searches. But legal standards didn’t matter to me, in the end. Pretty quickly, I realized what I was going to do. Not because I was required to do it, but because Iwantedto. “The issue isn’t the legality of Lloyd’s will,” I say.“Lloyd expressed his dying wish—and it was a wish I happened to agree wholeheartedly with. Like he said, there’s nobody more deserving than you.”
“Charlotte—”
“No, listen to me. It’s not only what Lloyd wanted as his dying wish. It’s whatIwant now. In the present. I want you to have it, Auggie. It’s all yours.”
Auggie shakes his head. “Thankfully, it’s not up to you because I have to sign the transfer paperwork to make it effective. And I’m not going to do that. Ever. The condo is still yours. The transfer never happened. So, that’s that.”
I’m genuinely confused. I knew Lloyd’s will and video weren’t legally enforceable, thanks to the internet, but it never occurred to me to google anything about the transfer document after I filled it out. I figured Auggie would need to file it somewhere, and I assumed that’s what he’d do. “What do you mean you have to sign it, or I can’t give you the condo? That can’t be the way it works.”
“Google it, if you want. It’s the law in all fifty states.”
My shoulders slump. “Damn.”
He laughs. “Sorry to disappoint you.”
I twist my mouth. “Can I still live with you?”
“Of course, if that’s what you want to do.”
“I do. That’s all I want.”
Auggie’s face lights up. “That’s all I want, too. Well, other than . . .” He abruptly stops himself.
