“Fuck,” I mutter, burying my face in her neck and breathing her in, everything inside me settling with her in my arms. “I missed you so fucking much.”
“I missed you too,” she says, her voice muffled and laced with a happiness so huge I feel like I could reach out and touch it. “Maybe you could just carry me around for a while? I’m not ready for you to let me go yet.”
“I’ll never let you go,” I murmur, pulling back just slightly so I can see her. My eyes rove her face, trying to take all of her in at once, the love that swarms me so enormous it shouldn’t be survivable. Leaning in, I press my lips to hers. Electricity buzzesunder my skin as our mouths move together. As I tease her lips open and taste her for the first time in months. As she sighs, her fingers playing with my hair and her legs tightening around me as if any distance between us is unacceptable. As we both forget entirely that we’re in an airport, surrounded by people. Because we’re not. In this moment, we’re the only people in the world.
It’s the best kiss of my entire life.
“I love you,” I say, pulling back just enough to see her, stroking my knuckles over her face, my eyes steady on hers. Her breath catches and tears fill her eyes, even as her smile grows. “I love you so much. I’ve wanted to say it for months. Even before you left. I think I’ve loved you for years. Since the first day I saw you, Liv, I knew you were supposed to be mine. I wanted to say it the day you left for Italy. Every time we talked. Texted. In every letter I wrote to you. But I’m glad I didn’t because nothing in the world could be better than this.”
“I love you so much.” Olivia’s voice is raspy with unshed tears as she brings her forehead to mine. “I tore open your letter the second I sat down on the plane in Italy because I have no patience at all.” She laughs, shaking her head. “And it was the best flight of my life because I knew I was coming home to you. I’ve wanted to tell you forever, too, but I’m also glad I didn’t because this is the most perfect moment of my life.”
“Shit,” I mumble, kissing her lips, her forehead, her cheeks, everywhere I can reach. “I want to take you home and lock the door and I don’t want to come out for, like, five to seven business days.”
“That,” she says a little breathlessly, pressing a kiss to my neck that makes me shiver. “Let’s do that.”
I groan, reluctantly letting her slide down until her feet are on the floor but keeping my arms firmly around her. “We can’t. I think Gabe will actually murder me if I don’t bring you straight to his house. He planned a whole welcome home dinner. I’mnot supposed to tell you that Amelia and Elliot are in town with Clara, and apparently Maddy is primed to throw some kind of teenage tantrum if you don’t show up.”
Olivia laughs, laying a hand right over my heart that I cover with one of my own. “I know; she called me four times in the last two weeks to make sure I was actually coming home. Apparently, I have some serious groveling to do for missing her thirteenth birthday.”
I lean in and kiss her again, unable to stop now that she’s standing right in front of me. “Two hours,” I say against her lips. “Then I’m taking you home. Don’t plan on leaving our bed for at least the next three days. I have some time to make up for.”
“What about work?” she asks, her eyes bright with amusement. “Don’t you have important offseason business to deal with?”
Grinning, I kiss her again. “Took the week off. If there’s important offseason business, someone else can handle it. I have something really, really important to do.”
“Oh yeah, what’s that?”
I kiss her nose. “I need to make love to my girlfriend as many times as I can until we both collapse from exhaustion. Then I need to sleep with her wrapped up in my arms until we wake up and do it all over again. I fucking missed you, Liv, and I’m going to spend the next week showing you exactly how much.”
“Just the next week?” she asks, voice full of sass. “Doesn’t seem like you missed me all that much.”
Growling, I lean in and suck on her neck, flicking her pulse with my tongue until she gasps. I pull away, cupping her face in my hands. “I didn’t understand what it meant to miss someone until I missed you. It was like my heart couldn’t beat without you. Like I couldn’t take a full breath until I saw you standing in front of me. You’re my love, my soulmate, the other half of me. I love you, Olivia. Today, tomorrow, and until the end of our days.Be mine, Liv. No one will ever love you the way I do. Need you the way I need you.”
“I’m yours,” she says, her mouth tipped up in a soft smile as a tear tracks down her face. Her green eyes are bright, her cheeks flushed with a happiness that makes my chest ache. She is the most beautiful woman in the world. “My heart beats for you, too. I love you, Bry. Forever.”
“Forever,” I manage, emotion clogging my throat.
When I kiss her, it’s full of joy and possibility, the promise of everything that lies ahead. And then with joined hands, we leave the airport and step into the most beautiful future.
Together.
EPILOGUE
MADDY
EIGHTEEN YEARS LATER
“There she is.”
With a wide grin on his face, Uncle Brian—my dad’s half-brother—stands in the middle of the lobby of the sports complex that houses the front office and practice facilities of the Pittsburgh Renegades, watching as I walk across the wide stone floor. I thought getting here at seven a.m. when I didn’t actually need to be in until eight would mean I could skip this little family intervention.
I should have known better. Meddling is practically an art form in my family.
“Jesus, Uncle Bry,” I mutter. “Doesn’t the general manager of a whole entire football team have something better to do than hang around the office lobby?”
“I had nothing at all better to do than this,” he says, wrapping an arm around my shoulders. “When it’s my niece’s first day working for my football team, you better believe I’ll be hangingout in the lobby. You’re lucky it’s just me. I had to talk your dad, Asher, Gabe, and Ben out of showing up too. Jordan was even making noise about coming in from Boston and bringing his brothers.”
I roll my eyes at his mention of my dad and their other best friends who act less like men in their fifties and more like overgrown frat guys half the time. “Thanks for that. I think they may have forgotten that I’m thirty years old, and starting a new job isn’t that big of a deal.”
