I wipe my eyes. “I hope you didn’t read some of those awful comments.”
“I’ve got thick skin in this timeline,” he says, and I believe him. “Trolls like that can’t hurt me, okay?”
“Okay.”
He stands from the chair, crosses to the bed, and sits beside me. Close enough to touch. Far enough for me to be able to breathe without breaking into a sob.
“It’s that thick skin that reminded me that I wasn’t always this way. I changed over time. I grew that thick skin. That doesn’t mean I’m not still the shy boy my dad walked out on, the scared, closeted teen you met at fifteen, the out-and-proud high school senior in this photo.” He taps the glass above his smiling face with his pointer finger. “The twenty-three-year-old so in love with you that it kept me up some nights. The twenty-six-year-old who became a business owner to live out his dream and prove he wasn’t broken.”
“Drew…” I whisper. He strokes the back of his hand across my cheek, swiping away a stray tear I didn’t even realize had escaped.
“I’m also the thirty-year-old you see now who is irrevocably changed because I knew you again. Exactly as you are. Not trapped, like I thought, but brand-new in this body,” he says, cracking a small smile that makes me feel proud. “Maybe that’s what Lucille meant by that card reading. It wasn’t a real death the grim reaper was signaling. It was your ego that died.”
This revelation washes over me alongside relief. He’s right. He’s also wise. When did he get so damn wise? “I agree. But what does this all mean for us?” It’s a vulnerable question that causes my hands to shake.
Drew notices and takes them in his, and even though his are shaking as well, it’s better that we’re frightened together than frightened alone. “It means that I want you in my life, Nolan. Whether that means trying again to get you back to our past or building our future from this point onward, I’m here for the long haul.”
Overwhelmed with love, I squash the space between us, wrapping him in a hug and kissing the side of his head a million times. He smells like sweat and tea tree oil andhim. I don’t even try to hide the fact that I’m inhaling his scent this time. “I love you so much, Drew,” I whisper into his ear.
He leans back so our eyes meet, and then he kisses me so deeply I could faint.
When I finally break our kiss and regain my senses, I take a deep breath and say, “Now I guess I just need to figure out if I can live without those seven years or not.” The precarious situation sits between us.
“Well, we’ll figure it out,” Drew says, wrapping an arm around my shoulder and heaving me in to his side. My head slips into the crook of his neck where it belongs, and like always, just his nearness makes my heart rate slow and my thoughts stop racing.
That’s until I replay what he just said,We’ll figure it out.
“We,” I whisper into his neck.
“Yeah,” he whispers back. “We.”
Finally, we’re awe.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
“I helped you with Drew,” CeeCee says as we walk through our neighborhood a few days after Imogen’s birthday. Imogen and Milkshake are, as usual, trotting a few steps ahead, Imogen blissfully lost in her own little world. “Now I need your help with Mom.”
“What with?” I ask, locking Milkshake’s retractable leash before he gets too far.
“James and I talked, and we want to move back to New Jersey,” she says.
“Oh my God,” I yelp, excited by this news. “That’s great.”
CeeCee nods. “I think so too, but I know Mom is going to push. She’s going to say our life is in Colorado. Imogen’s school and friends are in Colorado but…” CeeCee tilts her chin toward her daughter. “Aside from when we were at the hospital, I haven’t seen her happier. She needs her family.Ineed my family.”
“Retweet,” I say, shaking my head. I learned that lesson the hard, magical way.
“You know Twitter is barely a thing anymore, right?” CeeCee asks. “God, Drew and I are going to need to give you a crash course in 2030 etiquette. Properly catch you up to the times, you relic.”
I laugh, and then return us to the real topic at hand as we cross the street, sun shining down on us. “Whatever you need from me.I got you.” With my career on hold and with Drew standing by me, I feel sort of invincible. I’ve come to terms with time travel. I could move mountains, probably. “I’m with you,” I tell her, squeezing her shoulder.
And she squeezes right back.
“I need a change,” CeeCee says to Mom the day before they’re scheduled to fly back to Colorado. “We’re moving back to New Jersey.”
It’s the speech CeeCee practiced with me in my room the night before, because the truth is that CeeCee knows the loneliness will eat away at Mom. Mom’s at her happiest when she has someone to helicopter, and lord knows CeeCee and James will need the help with a second kid on the way.
“I’m comfortable here,” CeeCee tells Mom between bites of turkey and cheese on rye. “I want to be able to visit you and Dad whenever I want.”
