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Dax swallows. “It’s just too much.”
I can’t breathe. I can’t even form words, likeYou’re wrongorI can fix this,whatever it is. I’ll do whatever it takes.I open my mouth to attempt, to try, but Dax is faster.
“I couldn’t handle pretending. Waiting for the next Stuart to come along and watch you love him and not me. So I just didn’t think we could be friends anymore.”
“Dax—”
“But the idea made me sick. Fucking miserable. Dougie made me come home early because he couldn’t look at my sad face any longer. But when I walked in here just now and saw you here in my apartment, I knew I’d deal with a hundred more Stuarts if I could keep you in my life. I love you too much, Gems. And you’re never gonna lose me.”
My lungs draw air with ease. As if a thousand-pound weight has suddenly been lifted from my chest.
“So this means…” I’m almost too afraid to say it.
“It means you better get over here and kiss me because I have been waiting four years for this.”
It’s all the invitation I need. In a beat, I’m across the floor and in his arms.
There’s no hesitation to our kiss, no timid brushing of the lips. His tongue melds perfectly with mine as his hands wind their way into my hair. Like they’ve done it many times before.
Almost as if they’ve remembered.
I think we kiss for hours. Who the hell knows? Time and reality are skewed for me lately. When he finally pulls away, his lips are slightly puffed from what may have been the most epic make-out of both our lives.
“That was really good,” he says, still cradling my face in his palms.
“I was going to say incredible, but if we want to stick with good, I’m willing to put in the practice.”
He places another soft kiss on my lips, but when he pulls away, his brows are pulled low.
“What are you thinking?”
He pauses for a moment before answering. “Just that it didn’t feel like a first kiss at all.”
I still don’t fully understand what happened this past month. Why the universe chose me, chose us for this second chance.
“Yes, I’d have to agree.”
Chapter 32
6 months later
“Hello, gorgeous.”
I’m talking to the floor. But it’s a hardwood floor. It could use a sweep and possibly one of those buffing machines you rent from Home Depot, but none of that matters because it’smywood floor. Andmyempty aluminum shelves that are soon to be filled with lemon-scented beauty products and a dream four-and-a-half long years in the making.
“I have brought sustenance.” Kiersten props open the front door of my store with her hip and holds up a doughnut box. The bell that chimes above her head is a sound I have missed. A memory from literally a lifetime ago and one that I haven’t heard in six long months.
I pull a Boston cream from the Nana’s doughnut box, take a sip of still-hot oat misto from Brewski’s, and stare out at the beginnings of Wilde Sisters Beauty 2.0. The 2.0 part is silent. I say it only to myself, in my head, as I have decided that my sister and my aunt and even Dax aren’t quite ready to live in a multi-reality universe.
I chalk up my time in Other Gemma’s life as a strange dreamor a vivid hallucination that taught me a few life lessons I needed to learn.
“I feel like we need to make a toast.” My sister raises her coffee cup. My coffeeless aunt holds up her book.
“To Gems. For finally growing a vagina and making her dreams happen. I love you. I wish you every success and me an endless supply of fancy face cream.” She lifts her coffee even higher. “And to me and my brilliant mind for dreaming up the perfect marketing plan to ensure Hamiltonians are lining up to get inside.”
“Hear, hear!” cheers my aunt as I embrace my sister. For the last six months, things have been different between us. Better. I’m trusting in my abilities to solve my own problems, and that’s given her some room to focus on her own life.
The bell above the door tinkles once again.
