And then, with a light, tentative, careful brush of his lips over hers, he did.
Despite their many starts and stops, kissing Haddie now felt like kissing someone brand-new and also like they’d fit together like this for years.
“Come home, Haddie,” he whispered against her, and he felt her lips part into a smile.
She clasped her hands around his neck and pulled him closer.“I’m already there,” she told him.
Yeah. Come to think of it, Levi was too.
Epilogue
“It’s winter break,” Haddie told him. “Why do we have to do itnow?”
Levi held the main door to Summertown Elementary open, shooing her inside before anyone saw them.
“Because I want it to be the first thing your students see when they get back from the holidays, and I kind of need you to see it too.” He kissed her on the cheek and the shooed her again, this time toward her hallway. “Come on… If Coach Crawford finds out I swiped his key ring at the Crawford Christmas party, it’s not going to matter if he finds out about us. I will be toast.”
Haddie snorted, then covered her mouth with one hand while holding tight to the rolled-up piece of poster board under her other arm. “He and the board agreed to the activity fees and communal fund. I think it’s safe to say you’re his golden child again.”
Levi shrugged but a smile spread across his beautiful face. “I’m just happy he named Tommy the director of athletics and activities. There is no one better to make sure the new way of doing things runs smoothly.”
In the months since the wedding, Haddie had never seen Leviso happy as he was at—of all places—a school board meeting where Principal Crawford not only let a petition change his mind about running his ship the way he’d always run it, but also gave his son the much deserved honor of helping him navigate new waters.
They reached Haddie’s classroom door, and she retrieved her own key ring from her coat pocket to unlock it. But her hands were still cold from the crisp December evening, and she fumbled the retrieval, dropping the keys to the floor with a metallic clang that sounded so much louder in the silent, vacant school.
A light flicked on across the hall in the main office, and Haddie and Levi froze when Principal Crawford appeared in the doorway.
“How did you two get in here?” he asked, striding toward them with his arms crossed over a Muskies hoodie that he wore with matching sweatpants.
Haddie picked her keys up while stammering, “We were just… I mean, Levi wanted to… See, I have this poster…”
Levi, on the other hand, still stood like an ice sculpture. Haddie wasn’t even sure he was blinking.
“He can see you,” she stage-whispered. “You’re not fooling anyone.”
To her surprise—and she hoped Levi’s too—the older man laughed.
“Do you kids think I don’t know you’ve been swiping my keys for the past fifteen years or more?” He clapped Levi on the shoulder. “And I see you’ve gone and gotten yourselves entangled even after I warned you against it.”
Levi swallowed and finally showed signs of life by nodding.
“We’re not entangled, sir. Just…um…in love,” Levi told him, and Haddie swore she fell for him again in that very moment.
“And you’re breaking into school because…?”
“Not breaking, sir,” Levi continued. “We used your keys.”
Haddie winced. “Oh, Babe, you are just digging us deeper.”
Coach Crawford held out his hand. “Keys, Rourke.”
Levi produced the school’s master key ring.
“How long has this been going on?” he asked them both, and Haddie tried to beat Levi to the punch, but he couldn’tstoptalking now.
“Since the beginning, sir. I fell for her the night I met her at the same hotel where Tommy had his wedding.”
Haddie’s heart both leaped and sank as she realized how utterly romantic that was but also—sadly and adorably—stupid to admit because it sealed their fates.
