An idea kept bouncing around my skull but I wasn’t sure how to bring it up. I just went for it, hoping I could figure it out on the fly like everything else with Clara. “So, listen.”
She glanced away from the window. “Yeah?”
I let out a long breath. “Okay, so I know we’ve done everything at warp speed and what I’m about to suggest might be crazy, but would you like to move in with me for real? Not just while you settle in and look for a place, but for good.”
Clara smiled but it quickly faded. “It’s a beautiful offer, but you don’t know what you’re asking.”
“I think I do,” I said, frowning. “Unless you’ve got some terrible secret I’m unaware of. You’re not an international jewel thief or something, right?”
“Not currently.” She shook her head with a grin.
“Well, hey, no pressure. The last thing I want to do is push you into something you’re not ready for.” I felt foolish for asking.I had just gotten her to talk to me again. Asking her to move in with me was too much. “I’m sorry. I made things weird.”
“No, Luke, relax,” she said, putting a gentle hand on my wrist. “I want to move in with you more than anything I’ve ever wanted in the world. I just want to make sure you mean it and you’re not just caught up in the moment, which, to be fair, is amazing. So good I can’t think of a single thing that would make it better.”
I kissed her quickly, just a peck. “How about that?”
“Okay, that was pretty good,” she said. “How about this? I’ll stay here and I won’t look for a place. One month from today, you can ask me to move in with you again officially, okay? If you’re not tired of me by then.”
I grabbed her shoulders and looked into her eyes. “I will never get tired of you.” I pulled her in for a tight embrace. Unable to help myself, I added, “And if you end up being an annoying roommate, we’ll just get a bigger place.”
Clara made an offended sound that was cute as hell. She pushed back enough to look up at me, eyes sparkling with laughter. “I’m the one who’ll have to get used to living withyou, Luke Whitaker. Leaving your clothes all over the place.”
She gestured at the pants and underwear we’d left in the hallway when she’d unwrapped me like a gift.
I chuckled and shook my head. “You left those there.”
She shrugged. “But they’re your clothes. I don’t see my underwear lying around.”
I cocked my head toward the Christmas tree. “Those are hanging off one of the middle branches.”
“Yeah, right.” She squinted over at the tree and her mouth fell open. “Luke, did you do that?”
“It was Santa. I had nothing to do with it.”
She shot me a playful look. “Santa’s going to end up on the naughty list, doing things like that.”
“Good. As long as your name is right next to mine.”
EPILOGUE
CLARA
One Year Later
If I had ever been more nervous, I couldn’t remember. It was opening night of my first Broadway show, and my stomach was one big knot of anxiety. I ran through all the scenes in my head again, knowing them backward and forward but doing it anyway.
Tonight was the night I had dreamed about since I was a kid. Things needed to go perfectly.
Someone knocked on the door of my little office backstage. It wasn’t glamorous like one of the stars’ dressing rooms. Drawings and blueprints were scattered on one table. On another was the timing schedule for each set move. Right by my laptop was a framed picture of Luke and me, cheeks squished together.
It had been half a year since I’d made the big move to New York. Luke and I had not gotten tired of each other after living together for a month. The artificial deadline came and went, and neither one of us brought it up again.
Living with Luke had been great. When I had first walked into his apartment as his fake girlfriend, he had been uncomfortable letting someone else into his space, but he had mellowed out about that completely. He had even been encouraging me to add some color to our home recently. After we had taken the lights down, our place had seemed so lifeless and dull. I was livening it up, and Luke seemed to like it.
Life had moved quickly for me since Christmas. Ganymede hired me immediately to get designing for her next production,A Drink for Rasputin. It was a comedy about the fall of imperial Russia. I didn’t understand all the jokes, to be honest, but the sets were going to blow people away.
As long as everything went according to plan. Opening nights were notorious for things going wrong. Problems cropped up that had never been an issue during rehearsal. I just hoped I could roll with the punches when they started flying.
