AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I want to hold her there. Pin her with my body, my heart, whatever it takes so I never have to watch her leave again. Only I don’t even know why she’s here. If she’s staying. If there was some problem with her ticket and once it’s resolved, she’ll be on a flight tomorrow.
Using Herculean strength, I break from her kiss. My brow rests against hers, the breaths between us coming in ragged pants.
Her soft hand smooths over my cheek, my jaw, before coming to rest over my heart. I meet her eyes, showing her everything in mine I’ve been hiding for two fucking weeks.
“Don’t go.” The words are gravel-and-glass-rough, a plea so desperate it grinds past my throat.
“What?”
I push my hands into the thick waves of her hair, letting the weight of it slip through my fingers before holding it tight. “Give me a chance. I can make you happy. I won’t hold you back, I swear it. After playoffs, I can take you to France, take you anywhere you want to go. Or if you don’t want to wait for the season to end, I can send you. Paris, Rome, Barcelona… Tokyo. Anywhere. Just so long as you come back to me, to us, when you’re done.”
Her honey brown eyes pool with tears, a trembling smile rising to her lips. “So now you don’t want me to leave?”
I press her hand over that broken place inside my chest. “I never wanted you to leave. But”— this is going to fucking kill me —“I can’t live with being the man who holds you back from what you want.”
She slumps against the wall. Then frowns and thumps an angry but weak fist against my chest. “Then don’t.I want you and Otto. I love you. And it was killing me to try and leave you.”
She loves us. Still. Even after I pushed her away.
Christ, I’m such an idiot. But— “Why didn’t you go?”
“I tried. You’d made it clear you didn’t want me to stay.” I open my mouth to beg her forgiveness, to explain, but she shakes her head. “Ibelievedyou wanted me to go, and my heart was breaking. I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t stop crying. So I called Caroline.”
Caroline. Who knew the truth. “What happened?”
Nora takes a slow breath. “I told her I didn’t want to go. That it felt like I would be leaving the most critical parts of myself behind, like saying goodbye to you and Otto meant my life was ending instead of beginning… And then she told me what she did. That she went to you, and you agreed to make sure I got on that plane.”
“I’m so fucking sorry. I just… I didn’t want you to miss out on anything.” I didn’t want to be selfish, and instead, I was stupid. I hurt her. Day after day. Night after night. For nothing.
“And I don’t want to miss out on what matters to me the most. Us. You, me, and Otto. You know what I wanted? It wasn’t a life in France, it was to be able to choose how I live my life. And now, I choose the man I love and the little boy who feels like he’s already mine. That’s the life I want.”
My throat is tight as I search her eyes. “You love us that much?”
“I do.More.”
“Nora, are you sure?”
She sighs softly, nodding. “I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.”
“Me either.” My heart is slamming against my ribs, my blood rushing past my ears. I take her hand in mine and pull her back toward the apartment. “Come on, let’s go home.”
Leaning into my side, she takes a breath that I feel through my whole being. “I thought you’d never ask.”
She has no idea what I’m going to ask.
I push the door open and blink, finding Boomer and Bowie back on the couch, watching TV as they polish off a couple of sandwiches.
“Good to see you, Fun Wrecker,” Boomer says around a last bite as Nora rushes to where Otto is tucked in his arm.
She pulls him into her and kisses his head again and again. Fresh tears stream down her cheeks as she whispers that she loves him. That she missed him. That she won’t leave him again. I wrap the two of them in my arms, chuckling as Otto excitedly kicks, huffing her hair.
Bowie grabs the remote, turns off whatever reality dating show they’ve been watching, and grabs his buddy by the ear. “We’ll get her bags for you and take off.”
“Thanks, man.”
The three of us head back to our bedroom. I drape Nora’s coat over the back of the chair and climb into bed with the two people my heart beats for. Otto lies on his back, tucked between us, his eyes bright, fixed on his favorite girl.
I get it. I can’t look away either.
