I wanthim.
I don’t care if he’s a few years older. I don’t care if we need to work out our schedules. I don’t care what anyone else thinks.
I just know that for the first time in my life, I believe someone loves me enough to put me first.
Loves me.
He doesn’t have to say it.
Not when I can feel it.
“You can go see your family if you want,” I tell him again. “I’ll be here.”
“I wantyouto be part of my family,” he replies. “Fuck the traditions. I just want you.”
“That’s our cue,” Waverly whispers. “Go on. Move. Let them have their time.”
I don’t hear the door shut.
I’m too distracted by kissing Cash.
My holiday miracle.
The man who saved my Christmas merely by wanting me.
Just like I wrote in my song.
“This doesn’t feel real,” he murmurs to me as he sets me back on the floor, pressing a line of kisses down my neck.
“It feels amazing,” I whisper back. “Don’t ever stop, okay? I think I’d break if you stop.”
“I love you too much to break you.”
I believe him.
I have every reason not to, but I do.
I believe him.
And I never want to be alone on the holidays again. Not if I can have Cash with me instead.
EPILOGUE
ONE YEAR LATER…
Cash Rivers, aka a man who’s given up Hollywood to go back on the road
It’s almostmidnight on the last day of the best year of my life.
My girlfriend is laughing with her bestie by the bonfire where all of my friends and family members and their kids and parents are gathered roasting marshmallows.
And I’m happy.
There’s no other word for it beyond blissfully happy.
When I told Aspen last year as we cuddled at her cabin hideaway that I didn’t have any movie sets I had to get to and that I wanted to go on the road with her, I thought for a hot second she’d throw me out.
Tell me it was too much.
