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My lashes fan my cheeks. I can feel how they flush hot and red. “No, I suppose I haven’t.”
“You know what that means then, right?” The breath from his smile peppers my face. “You never said goodbye, so it means this thing between us never ended. I may have had to wait, but I’m learning that sometimes it’s better to deal with the pain than to live with the regret.”
He’s not wrong.
“Want to know what I’dreallyhate?” he drawls, arching both his shoulders and head toward the sky theatrically with a winded groan.
Tears well at the creases of my lids, and I swallow, holding them back. Why am I getting so emotional?
I sniffle. “What?”
Finn cocks his head to the side, his mouth tugging upward. “I’d really hate to hear a goodbye from the girl I’m in love with.”
Now the tears fall. Big, fat droplets race down from either side of my cheeks, but I’m also smiling. My cheeks hurt because I’m beaming from ear to ear.
A shiver shoots its way down my spine as soon as one of Finn’s calloused thumbs strokes my cheek, catching one of the drops and showing it to me. “What did you call these again? Kisses?”
More sobs escape, but they’re happy.I’mhappy.
Finn never quit, as he said. Never gave up on us. I told him once that I was his good luck charm, but really, he’d been mine, and I hadn’t understood that until right now.
His lips purse, but there’s something cocky and full and present in his expression. My posture rises and falls.
“You mind?”
Finn’s eyes lower, flicking to my mouth, and my stomach sucks in to my ribs. He isn’t talking about the droplet of water staining his thumb anymore. The familiar ache I’ve had for him burns alive and present the same as it has for years.
“You can have them all,” I breathe.
And no sooner do the words leave my lips than I’m being lifted to the tips of my toes and his lips are finding mine. A pair of strong arms wrap around my waist and lift me from the ground as if I were weightless.
Finn’s mouth devours mine, his grip hauling me closer somehow as my fingers dive into his hair, holding him securely.
Our kisses are as hard and as deep as our journey. All of the trials, every tribulation, every setback. Each one was devastating but beautiful because they brought us here.
Finn pulls back without warning. “Just so we’re clear, these kinds of kisses are the only ones I want, alright?”
I sigh against his mouth, shaking my head deliriously in bliss. “Shut up and kiss me again, Finn.”
He salutes. “You got it, Williams!”
Spinning me, he does as I ask, and I agree. These are my favorite types of kisses as well.
The ocean has always been my haven, but Finn, he’s my home.
Epilogue
One Year Later
“Thesignsaysnotrash on the beach, so what are you doing here?”
“Madison is with me. I invited her,” Eli ridicules in her defense.
“Whatever,” I scoff, pinching my tongs between them. “Just don’t let your girl get too close to the grill. I don’t have crayons or enough energy to keep her entertained.”
“I’m not his girl,” Madison spews at the same time Eli says, “We’re just friends.”
I scoff, turning my attention back to flipping the chicken on the grill. I have more pressing things I’d rather associate myself with than trying to define whatever those two are or are not. We’re here to celebrate, and I refuse to let one person’s presence bring me down.
