“Too far away to hear yet.” She glances up at me, a small, knowing smile playing on her lips. I love looking at her when a storm is nearby; that magic in her comes alive.
“So,” she starts, “have you still been doing it?”
I tilt my head. “You know I have.”
She watches me for a second, then nods. “Every week?”
“Every Sunday night,” I say. “I put on that playlist you made me and fill it in.”
She turns back to the railing, elbows resting on the edge. The wind tugs a few strands of hair loose, and I reach out, tucking one behind her ear.
“You’ve been keeping up with yours?” I ask.
“Every week. Some pages are good, some are a disaster, but it helps. Makes me feel close to you even when we’re not in the same place.”
I nod. “A year’s going to go fast.”
She brings my arms tighter around her. We stay like this, breathing, listening, just being together. The scrapbooks we’ve been filling out for each other were all her idea, a way to recap the time spent apart at the end of it all when we’re living here.It works, too, and gives us something to hold onto when we’re miles apart.
The air between us feels easy, quiet. She tilts her head back against my chest, her fingers finding mine and weaving them together.
When she turns around, it’s slow and unhurried, her hands sliding up my chest until they’re looped around my neck. The city lights paint soft edges across her face, and I swear I feel her heartbeat against mine.
“Hi, baby,” I murmur.
“Hey,” she says back, smiling like she already knows what I’m thinking.
I lower my head, catching her mouth in a kiss that starts gentle, but deepens fast, everything unspoken finding its way between us. Her hands tighten at the back of my neck, and mine find her waist, pulling her in closer.
When we pull apart, her forehead rests against mine, both of us catching our breath.
I pull out my phone, open the camera app, and angle it to capture us. Liv leans in, tucking her head beneath my chin, and smiles. I snap the photo and another as she closes her eyes, breathing me in.
“I like being here,” she says quietly. “With you. I don’t want to go back to separate calendars and beds.”
I nod once. “We’ll get there. One more year, right?”
She nods, too, and presses her forehead to my collarbone. I hold her there, memorizing the weight of her, the sound of the waves behind us, the way she always fits against me like this, knowing that this is our beginning.
Chapter fifty-six
Liv
One year, two months later
I don’t think I’ve stopped smiling all day.
The apartment is a mess, there are boxes everywhere, half-built furniture, a couch we argued over and then bought anyway. But it finally feels real. Our place, we finally did it.
Jay’s in the kitchen, rummaging through a box labeledfragile. “You sure this is the one with mugs?” he calls.
“No idea,” I say, sitting cross-legged on the floor, surrounded by another stack of unopened boxes. “Could be mugs, could be my shoes or my vibrators. Live a little.”
The clatter of metal tells me that the box probably isn’t mugs. “Your logic is wild.”
I snort. “Don’t act like you didn’t sign up for that.”
The sound of him laughing fills the space again, bouncing off the bare walls and making the place feel less empty. I look around and exhale. Sunlight pours through the balcony doors, glinting off the ocean just visible in the distance.
