Page 125 of This Kiss

But I will not walk away. Not today. Not ever. Not as long as there is a chance of getting her to return to the love that binds us once she finds it again.

“You’re not going to give up on me, are you?” she asks.

“You’re all I want.”

“We should record this, then,” she says.

“My phone is busy at the moment playing the music.”

She pulls hers from her pocket. “We’ll use mine.”

She flips it to show our faces and presses record.

“I’m Ava Roberts, and I’m here with Tucker Giddings in the disco room of the children’s hospital. Apparently, this is where we met.”

“We’ve chosen better music this time,” I say. “But as long as we’re together, it doesn’t matter where we go or what we hear. The heart remembers.”

“I like that,” she says. “The heart remembers. Maybe I’ll get that tattooed on me to go with the others. Right over my heart.”

“I’ll get one, too.”

“It’s a plan.” She tucks the phone back into her pocket. “So, are you going to kiss me or what?”

“You ready for that?”

“Does a girl always have to ask for her first kiss?”

“It’s not exactly your first kiss.”

“Okay, so not myfirstfirst kiss. Or my second.” Her face scrunches up as she thinks.

“It’s our fifth,” I tell her. “Our fifth first kiss.”

A smile breaks across her face. “All right then, Tucker Giddings. What does a girl have to do to get herfifthfirst kiss?”

I draw her close. The colored light washes over us, the music humming from the speaker. Taylor Swift, of course. In every iteration, Ava is a Swiftie. We resume a gentle sway, and I swear the world goes completely still as my lips meet hers. She’s back to me. I can feel it in the tingle that passes between us.

We’re back. Another new beginning.

I’m the luckiest man on earth.

With this kiss, we get to fall in love all over again.