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“There’s just a lot to unpack,” Sam said. “I should’ve made coffee. What was that part about Jewel?”
A little chagrined, I said, “Uh, Conner told me. That she’d come over once.”
His forehead wrinkled, then cleared. “To pick up an old violin I helped refurbish for the shop,” he said. “She was here for maybe ten minutes. I’m not interested in dating anyone else.”
Anyone else.I allowed my heart to lift, just a little bit. “Oh.”
“And you want me to come to your dissertation defense?” he asked.
I shifted, hearing how outrageous it sounded. “Yeah,” I said.“I mean, ideally, I’d love to have you there. Conner and Shani are going to come. But it’s also probably totally weird for me to ask you, and a huge imposition, and I’d understand—”
“Is it the same thing you said was the ultimate milestone of your graduate career? I’m sorry if I’m being dense, but you called it your second-biggest presentation of your life, so I’m a little confused.”
“Well, yeah,” I said. “Becausethisis the most important presentation of my life. What I’m saying to you now. I’m sorry I didn’t make a PowerPoint.”
He crossed the space between us in only a few strides, and then he was kissing me, his hands cradling my cheeks, my back against the door. The shock of having his mouth against mine, the sheerreliefof it, made me start to cry, which I tried to hide from him so he wouldn’t stop.
But he pulled back, rubbing his thumb along my jaw. “Ah,” he said softly. “Please don’t cry. I love you, too, Phoebe. I always will.”
I hiccuped a little. “I thought I’d fucked it all up.”
“No,” he said. “I’d told myself I would wait until the semester was over, and then I’d ask Conner for your number. I didn’t know what kind of reception I’d get, but I wasn’t ready to give up on us.”
“Really? I was afraid you’d forget about me.”
“Not possible.” He gestured over toward the corner, and I turned, not sure what he was trying to show me until my gaze landed on my guitar, lined up with several others in a rack over against the wall. “Turns out it was more painfulnotto have something of you around, so I asked Conner if I could have it.”
And the little bastard hadn’t even told me.
“I still have one of your shirts,” I said.
“I know. I was looking for it. We’re supposed to wear previous years’ themed shirts on Throwback Thursdays.”
I winced. “Whoops. Sorry.”
He smiled, giving me a kiss on the corner of my mouth. “Don’t be. I liked imagining you wearing it.”
“What aboutnotwearing it?”
His hands drifted down my back, settling over my ass and pulling me closer to him. “Even better.”
“I know it’s late,” I said. “And you’re tired, and I’ve been driving for ten hours, but...”
“Oh, don’t worry about me,” Sam said, his eyebrow raised in challenge. “I’m calling out tomorrow. My girlfriend is defending her dissertation and I can’t miss it.” He gave me a cute little squinty-eyed face. “Is that okay to say? Girlfriend?”
“I’m not afraid of that word anymore,” I said. “I’m still afraid of a lot of things, most of them very specific scenarios involving being taken to a second location. But I’m not afraid ofthis, of loving you or being loved by you.”
“Some might say your reading choices have a lot to do with that,” Sam said. “But does the bedroom count as a second location? Or is that okay?”
I tilted my face toward his for another kiss. “I’d go anywhere with you,” I said. “Take me there.”
EPILOGUE
CONNER AND SHANIgot married the April after I graduated, in a wedding that was ninety percent Shani’s family, nine percent Conner’s friends I’d never met, my mom and stepdad, and then me and Sam.
I’d finished my Best Person speech and plopped down in my seat, still feeling flushed and full of adrenaline and sentimentality. Sam looped his arm around me from behind, pulling me toward him to kiss my hair.
“You nailed it,” he said. “Although I didn’t understand any of theCrash Bandicootreferences.”
