Two fingers tuck under my chin and lift them. “You’re everything. I knew you’d be here and still barely found the courage to walk over here.”
Seth’s gaze lands on my lips, and he raises a brow for permission. “Please,” I whisper. His mouth molds over mine, and my whole body sighs with that coming home to a warm fire feeling. His hand tangles in my mess of hair, and I thread my fingers through the curls in the back of his head.
“This is going to change a lot,” I whisper against his lips. “What if we don’t make it? What if—”
“Don’t worry, Buttercup.” He presses our foreheads together. “Whatever it is when we wake up, I’ll find you. Okay? We could live a thousand lives, and I’d find you in all of them.”
“Whoa, your bond worked fast,” Jenny squeaks with a huge grin plastered on her face a few feet away. “I knew it was a special one.”
And Seth and I deteriorate into a giggling, happily ever after mess.
Chapter twenty-one
The Family Man
Seth
“Shit,thiswasabad fucking idea,” I grumble, scraping burnt bits of egg in the pan into the trash.
“Dude, relax. It’s not like we haven’t made a shitty breakfast for them before.” Connor rubs my shoulders, and I breathe a little lighter. Connor may have made Jenny breakfast before in the house we share with them, but I haven’t done this for Maddie, not like this.
This morning, I debated just laying in bed with her and never leaving. Sure Ellie made a mistake, but when the fresh memories flooded in, I saw how much ten minutes can change a life’s course. Maddie and I became inseparable after the diner. I didn’t think it was possible to love her more than I already did, but since we met in this timeline, the bond between us has increased every day, and I’ve grown more and more irrevocably hers.
Jenny and Maddie stayed rooming together, and eventually, I moved in. Jenny still tutored Connor, but without a barrier like Maddie, they got cozy pretty damn fast. And apparently, Connor being here motivated me to play football again. Not in a collegiate way. The knee’s still toast, but I can do the club flag team fine, and I go over the tape and game-day strategies with Coach and Connor once a week for “fun.” In another semester, we can call it what it is. I’m the quarterback coach.
“What are you doing?” I nod to his phone, pushing the sleeves of my crewneck up, not hiding my tattoos or moderately toned forearms for once.
“Ordering delivery that the girls always let us pass off as food we made, even though they know it’s from the diner like I always do after you burn the eggs.” He shrugs.
“I always liked you.”
“Thank you?” He chuckles. “Why are you being so weird today?”
“Just nervous.”
“Oh shit, no way. Are you proposing today?”
“Not a great day to do it—“ I shake my head. “Probably should save that for a while down the road.”
Soft footsteps pad down the hallway, and I breathe a sigh of relief when Jenny appears around the corner. I need to collect myself before Maddie sees me like this, or I’ll never hear the end of how nervous I was the first day.
“Why wouldn’t it be good?” Jenny smirks, curling into Connor’s lap on a stool. “I thought we had decided Christmas Eve was the perfect day to do it."
“The day for what?” A honey-sweet voice makes me jump, and I end up knocking my mound of burnt toast.
Jenny studies the burnt toast with disgust. “You two usually have the delivery here by now. What gives?”
“Aarons seems extra nervous today or something.”
“Does he?” Maddie quirks her head, and I get the complete picture of her in my flannel and a pair of boxer shorts poking through. “Regrets, Aarons?”
“Not a fucking one,” I say, suddenly famished in a way that breakfast can’t satisfy. In a second, I hoist her over my shoulder and take the stairs two at a time.
“We’ll leave your breakfast in the fridge for y’all, Pookie,” Jenny hollers.
“Thank you, Pixie,” the woman thrust over my shoulder returns with a giggle.
Chapter twenty-two
