Lauren rolled her eyes. “You afraid of my cat?”
Her tone was adversarial, and Caleb couldn’t exactly blame her. She’d agreed to take him back, but he still had a little work to do to make her trust him “I’m sorry,” he said. He sat on the sofa. “This is going all wrong. I was joking. I mean, I do trust you, but—”
Lauren sat beside him and put her hand over his where it rested on his thigh. “It’s okay. We haven’t been dating very long. I never even needed that much from you, not this soon. I just wanted you to open up a little and accept that something had changed between us. That we were starting to mean more to each other than just sex. Now you and I can be together and see where it goes.”
“I know. I understand that. That’s what I was trying to show you. Did I bungle it?”
“No.” She smiled.
“Because I’ve changed. You changed me.”
She blinked a couple of times. “Are we having a romantic comedy ending? Is this like every other Julia Roberts movie?”
He laughed. “I’m just a boy…sitting next to a girl…asking her to love him.”
She smiled. Her eyes looked a little watery. “Haveyou changed?”
He took a deep breath. “If I haven’t, I want to. I’m tired of feeling the way I have since Kara left. Putting on armor may keep me safe, but it sure is lonely in there. And I honestly don’t know if you and I will work out. I just know my life is better with you in it. The more time we spent together, the more I started to feel like myself again, and not the jaded asshole I’d become. I will probably never be the old Caleb again, but I am this man now, and I want to be open. Unlocked. Not closed.”
She smiled, definitely teary now. She leaned forward, cupped his chin, and pressed her lips against his.
That was when he knew they might be all right. If he remained open to Lauren, they would figure the rest out.
He slid his fingers into her hair. He’d missed this hair, missed the silky feel of it between his fingers. He’d missed her voice, he’d missed the freckles across her nose, he’d missed how heartfelt and genuine she was. He’d missed this woman, period. He deepened the kiss and pulled her into his arms, and before he even knew what was really happening, she was straddling him on the sofa.
“Are we doing this?” he asked, her hair hanging down around his head like a curtain.
“Yeah, we are.”
He laughed, encouraged by the growl in her voice. “This is the easy part, you know.”
“What, the sexy bits?” She grinned. “I know. We’ll have to work at the other stuff. As long as you’re willing, I am, too.”
“For you? Anything.”
They kissed again. Caleb settled back into the sofa and took Lauren into his arms. And he felt…content. Right. Like everything was falling into places. Why had he been fighting so hard to accept this in his life? He’d been so sure Lauren would betray him the way Kara had, but this felt different. He’d learned things in the decade since he and Kara had made a commitment to each other. He’d changed. Things would be different this time. And rather than be afraid of what the future might hold, he’d be open to it.
“So, ah…” Lauren said with a smile, running her hands down Caleb’s chest. “Should we, um, seal the deal?”
“Are you making a sexy double entendre?”
“I am.”
She waggled her eyebrows, which made him laugh. Had he laughed this much with Kara? No, he didn’t think so. And he would stop comparing Lauren to Kara, because this was a different relationship with an entirely different woman, and the potential was there for this to be something really amazing, as long as he stayed open to it.
Epilogue
Lauren was putting her earrings in as she walked out of the bedroom. Hank was asleep on the living room rug, with Molly curled up in a ball against him.
Lauren shook her head. Of all the developments of the last few months, the fact that Hank and Molly got along was the strangest. When Diane had agreed to lease them this place—a two-bedroom up a floor from Lauren’s old one-bedroom—Lauren had been convinced putting the animals together would end with Molly scratching Hank’s face off, but they’d become fast friends instead.
Caleb was in the kitchen pouring himself a bowl of cereal. He was still in his gym clothes, beads of sweat standing out against his hairline. His one complaint about the building was that it wasn’t near any good places to run, so he’d taken to running on the treadmills at the gym across the street instead. Lauren felt a little bad about that, but not enough to give up her discount on the apartment. There were New Yorkers who would have killed to get the kind of deal they had.
“We still on for dinner tonight?” he asked, his mouth half-full of cereal.
“Elizabeth’s at six, yes. See, I’m getting better at letting go and delegating. The Cat Café is open until eight today. Paige is closing.”
“I’m very proud of you.”
