My mind flashed back to Chicago, to whispered confidences in the dark, when I’d told Joe there was no space for me in Chris’s life. That we only fit together as long as I didn’t take up too much room.
And Joe remembered. He’d listened. My heart swelled.
I touched the desk again, unable to resist. “It’s perfect.”
“When you leave, you can take it with you. A piece of your father. He would have been so proud of you.”
The tears spilled over. I shook my head. “It’s not just mydad. It’s you.” My father’s bench, my father’s love, carved into the wood, given new shape by Joe’s work, Joe’s hands, Joe’s heart.
“You have a piece of me already.”
“Do I?” I asked breathlessly.
Joe took my hand and held it over his chest. “Here.” His heart thudded, strong and steady, against my palm. “You take it wherever you go.”
My fingers curled into his shirt. I pulled myself up, standing on tiptoe to kiss him. His mouth was warm and sure on mine as his arms came around me.
“I’d have a hard time movingthatin Mom’s car,” I said. His lips quirked. “The desk,” I clarified.
“It comes apart.”
I grinned. “Of course it does.”
Because that was Joe. He was good at making things fit, at making things work. But I was a smart girl. I could figure out how to make things work, too.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I told him. “Not for the next nine months. Maybe longer. Beverly Powell is planning to retire in another year. They’ll be looking for a new English teacher. If everything works out, maybe they’ll want me.”
Joe’s deep brown gaze fixed on mine. “Is that what you want?”
“Maybe.” I swallowed. “I think so. I’m sorry.”
He frowned. “Why? You haven’t done anything to be sorry for.”
“Because I can’t give you what you want.”
“Anne…You are what I want.”
A relieved sob escaped me. But even as we kissed again, my brain would not be silenced.
“No, see, you asked me, ‘Then what?’ ” I said as our lips pulled apart. “And the truth is, I don’t know. I thought I knew. I had all these dreams, and nothing has turned out exactly the way I planned.”
“I like your dreams. I like you. I love you. And if you love me for the rest of the school year or the rest of our lives, I will never be sorry. You make my whole world bigger, brighter. You make me a better man. But, Anne…I want that lifetime. I want that with you.”
I swallowed, hardly daring to believe. “Are you sure? What if I’m not enough? Or I’m too much?”
A corner of his mouth lifted. “You are never too much. And I can’t get enough of you.” He ran a finger gently under my eyes, catching my tears. “You said Rob taught you to love. Well, you taught me. With your whole heart, you said. Without holding back. And that’s how I love you, body, heart, and soul, with everything that’s in me, wherever you decide to go, whatever you decide to do.” He cradled my face in his hands. “I love you, Anne. Maybe I always have. I know I always will. Maybe it’s taken me a while to get there. It might take longer for me to figure some things out, but I’m here for all of it. I’m here for you.”
“I love that about you, the way you always show up,” I said. “I love you. You make me better, too. Even when I couldn’t count on anything else, I could always count on you.”
“On us.”
I touched his face. “Stalwart Joe.”
His lips quirked. “Fearless Anne.”
I smiled against his mouth. “A new nickname. I think I like it better than the Pest.”
He kissed me again, warm and real and solid, and all ourpast and all our future was in his kiss, as if we were alone on a hill under the stars or on a lumpy sofa bed in a stranger’s apartment or in a church in front of our family and friends. We kissed as though we were at the beginning of our story.
