Julia
It’s been almost a week since I told Ace I loved him and we went from being best-friends-who-weren’t-on-speaking-terms to together. As in,togethertogether.
Six days of waking up tangled in his sheets or him tangled in mine. Of toothbrush-sharing and takeout dinners and watching half a movie before one of us can’t take the tension anymore and climbs on top of the other. Six days of sneaking kisses between classes, falling asleep with my head on his chest, and wondering how the hell I survived college life before this.
Tonight, we’re headed to his parents’ penthouse for dinner because Cassie Kelly insisted. And when Cassie Kelly insists, you go.
It’s barely a fifteen-minute walk from our apartments, but Ace insisted we take the subway instead of walking. Something about “adding spice to our foreplay.” He’s been holding my hand the entire time, his thumb grazing my knuckles while his other hand rests lightly on my thigh. His eyes keep drifting to my mouth.
“You know,” he leans over and whispers, lips brushing the shell of my ear, “if I weren’t such a gentleman, I’d already have you pressed up against that pole.”
“Ace,” I hiss, scandalized but smiling.
“You’re right,” he says solemnly. “Too many witnesses. But just know, I’ve been mentally undressing you this entire ride.”
“Only mentally? That’sdisappointing.”
He grins like I told him it’s his birthday. “Lia. You can’t say sexy shit like that in public.”
“You started it.”
“True. But I’m finishing it,” he says as the train slows at our stop. “Hop on.”
“Hop on what?”
He turns, crouching slightly. “My back. Obviously.”
“You are not giving me a piggyback ride through Manhattan.”
“I absolutely am. Come on, it’s a tradition now.”
I laugh but oblige, wrapping my arms around his neck and letting him lift me off the floor like it’s nothing. “We’ve been dating for one week.”
“One week, and, like, almost two decades in the making. That’s tradition-worthy, baby.”
We draw a few stares as he jogs up the steps of the subway station with me on his back, dodging tourists and shouting about how I owe him a back massage after this. When we finally reach the elevator in his parents’ building, both of us are breathless from laughter, and Ace is still grinning like he won the lottery.
Which, according to him, he did. “Finally,” he mutters, pressing a kiss to my wrist. “You’re mine.”
The elevator doors slide open, and we step directly into the penthouse.
And that’s when it happens.
“Surprise!”
I jolt, nearly falling off Ace’s back as a wave of sound and confetti hits us like a brick wall.
Everyone—and I mean everyone—we know is standing in the Kellys’ massive living room.
And a giant balloon banner stretches across the room in bold letters:FINALLY!
Lexi and Blake are here, and so are Finn and Scottie, and all of Finn’s siblings. My sister Evie and Ace’s brother Gunnar. The Winslows are here. Ace’s parents are here, looking more excited andhappier than I’ve ever seen them. And my mom is smiling, though my dad kind of looks like someone just told him Ace knocked me up.
Ace lets me slide off his back gently, one arm still wrapped around my waist. “Is it just me, or does this feel like overkill?” he whispers toward me, but his dad hears him.
“Overkill? Acer, I’ve been waiting years for this. Literal years,” Thatch says, refilling champagne flutes in a tuxedo T-shirt.
My dad glares at him like he wants to file a noise complaint with his soul.
