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I grasped her chin with my fingers, doing the same. Planting a deep kiss on her lips, inhaling her taste and her sweet scent and everything I loved about her.
“Cam!” She did her best to look unaffected, though I was betting she wanted to bury her face in my shirt. “What was that for?”
“Thought it was only fair, since Parker was smacking on your sister.”
She hit my chest, but not enough to hurt. “You don’t have to kiss me in front of all of your friends,” she whispered.
Forest chuckled at my side. “Pretty sure Sutton and I were worse freshman year. You should have heard these guys back then.”
Adam wrinkled his nose. “I’m just saying, keep it in the bedroom.”
“We all shared a room, dumbass.” Forest lofted a pillow at Adam’s head.
I missed those days—all four of us, in one quad room. It sounded crammed, but it really wasn’t—since there were four of us, we had way more space than the typical dorm room. Plus, it had brought me my best friends. They were more than that, though. They were my brothers. The family I’d made.
And now, it included Ella, too.
Because I’d chosen her from that first day. From the very beginning.
Dropping my voice low, I brushed a hair back from her ear, glad she was sitting on my lap so I had easy access to her. “I love you,” I murmured, feeling her shiver on my lap. “That’s what it was for.”
She dropped her head to my shoulder, giving a contented sigh. “Thank you.”
“For what? Loving you? Not a hardship, believe me.”
Ella laughed, her face lighting up, those brilliant blue eyes twinkling as she rested our foreheads together. “For everything.”
“Always,” I promised her.
And I meant it.
I’d love her—with everything I had, for the rest of all time.
Because I’d promised her a happy ending, and I was going to deliver on it.
One step at a time.
One pair of shoes at a time.
Epilogue
ELLA
“Congratulations to this year’s graduating class of Castleton University!” The entire crowd cheered, and what seemed like thousands of hats were thrown up in the air at once before we all filed out of the stadium and outside to find our loved ones.
It felt like I blinked, and the day had finally arrived. Senior year came and went in a flash, and in some ways, it was the best year of my life. A lot of it was because I’d had Cam by my side, every step of the way.
We’d moved in to an apartment off campus together, and over the summer while I’d been doing my internship, as well as working on my portfolio—sewing designs in my new sewing room—he’d been studying for his LSATs and applying to law schools. He’d spent almost every weekend last summer at my house, and by the end, my parents adored him. Dad was taking him out golfing, and it made me happy to see them out together. Even if his parents didn’t love him the way they should, at least my parents would.
Though they’d gotten better about his choices, too. Maybebecause he’d come clean to them about how much his little brother’s loss had affected him, and they’d come to their senses. The first time I’d met his mom, she scooped me up into her arms, holding me tight. I’d expected an uptight woman, but that wasn’t what I’d found at all. She’d cried, and told me how thankful she was that I was with her son.
It wasn’t perfect, but what was? After all, I’d spent an entire month trying not to like Cam after we’d met, and look how that turned out.
Cam.His beautiful face—those angled cheekbones and sharp jaw I loved, the black hair I ran my fingers through every night and those chocolate brown eyes that I got lost in—appeared in front of me, looking as handsome as ever in his cap and gown. We both wore stoles with our fraternity and sororities’ letters embroidered on them, even further proof that we’d made it.
Finish line crossed—we were done.
“We fucking did it, baby,” he grinned, holding his diploma case at his side—and a large white bouquet that hadn’t been there before. “Sorry, they aren’t blue.”
