“Brooke, I...” I take a breath, and my chest feels tight with everything I’m about to put on the line. “I was just on my way to find you. I was heading to your apartment when you walked around that corner.”
Her lips part and she stares at me, not saying anything for a long moment. “You were coming to find me?” she asks.
“I don’t want you to feel weird pressure, like I got this gym for you. It was my dream anyway, it always has been, but... you were part of it too. Part of why I finally said yes.” The words feel heavy now, weighted with everything I need her to understand. “I thought about calling but it all felt like something I couldn’t say over the phone. So I just knew I had to come find you oncethe deal was actually signed. To see if you still want this. Me. To see if Mexico was real.”
For a long moment I’m not sure if I’ve made a terrible mistake, if I’ve misread everything, if she’s about to tell me that Mexico was just Mexico and I need to move on.
“You’re not going to believe this,” she says, the words coming out in a half laugh, her eyes shining. “I just got off the phone about twenty minutes ago. I accepted a promotion atThe Sporting Standard. It’s this huge opportunity, beyond anything I could have imagined. The role is basically mine to shape however I want. I get to mentor the next generation of journalists, decide which stories we pursue, actually change things instead of just writing about them.”
“Brooke, that’s amazing,” I say, and the pride that floods through me is overwhelming.
“But that’s not the point,” she says, stepping closer. “The point is, it’s remote optional. I can work from here when I need to, but it also means I could work from Dark River. Part of the time, at least. I could be bicoastal too.”
“Brooke...”
“I’ve been thinking about you every day since I got on that plane,” she says, and her voice cracks just slightly. “So if you’re asking if Mexico was real to me, the answer is yes. It was the most real thing I’ve ever felt.” She shrugs, a tear slipping down her cheek even as she smiles. “I chose you, Dom. Before I even knew you were choosing me too.”
I can’t wait anymore. I close the distance between us and pull her into me, one hand cupping the back of her neck, the other wrapped around her waist, and I kiss her like I’ve been drowning for weeks and she’s the first breath of air.
She melts into me, her fingers gripping the front of my jacket, and I can taste the salt of her tears on her lips. The city disappears. The cold disappears. Everything disappears excepther mouth on mine and the feeling of her body pressed against me and the knowledge that we both made the same impossible choice without knowing the other one was making it too.
I pull back just enough to see her face, my thumb brushing the wetness from her cheek. We’re both laughing now, the kind of laughing that comes out when you’re overwhelmed and happy and can’t quite believe what’s happening. I kiss her again, softer this time, lingering.
“I love you, Brooke,” I say against her lips. “I don’t know if we get another life, but I know I want you in this one. Even if there are a hundred versions of us out there somewhere, a hundred lives, I’d find you in every single one. And I’m never letting you go again.”
“I love you too, Dominic,” she says, and her hands come up to frame my face, holding me there. “In this life. In all of them. I’m yours.”
I kiss her again, right there on the sidewalk in the middle of Manhattan. We’d told each other in Mexico City that maybe in another life we could have worked out, and we’d let fear and distance and practicality win. I almost let that be the end of the story. I almost let the best thing that ever happened to me walk away because I was too scared to reach for it.
But not anymore.
This is it, this is the only life I’m sure of, and I choose her.
We choose each other.
EPILOGUE
Brooke
The sun is warm on my face as Dara and I walk down Fifth Avenue, both of us still riding the high of the meeting we just left. We’d managed to get full budget approval for the investigative series in under twenty minutes, unheard of for a project this size. The kind of win that calls for champagne, or at the very least a celebratory text thread that will last well into the evening.
Dara catches my eye, laughing and shaking her head as we weave through the crowd of tourists and businesspeople and dog walkers, and I smile right back. Shortly after I’d been promoted to Senior Editor, they’d offered Dara the role of head of investigative journalism. Originally it would have meant stepping back from her own writing completely to oversee the department, which she promptly declined. She told them they would increase her pay, she would do the managing, and she would keep writing her own pieces too. Non-negotiable.
Since Dara is the equivalent of ten normal people, they agreed to whatever terms she wanted. As they should.
“Did you see Richardson’s face when you pulled up the engagement numbers?” Dara says, shaking her head as she dodges a woman with a stroller. “I thought the man was going to fall out of his chair.”
“It helps when the work speaks for itself,” I say, still smiling from the way the whole room had shifted when we’d laid out the scope of what we wanted to do. “The crew we’ve put together is incredible. They’re the ones who made that pitch easy. Plus you and I make a damn good team. Between the two of us, we’ve got all the bases covered.”
“Damn right we do,” she says, bumping her shoulder against mine. “Speaking of bases, we still on for Saturday? Jay’s been asking when we’re going to have you guys over again. I think he’s already planning the menu.”
“We’re on,” I say, laughing. “Dom’s already cleared his schedule. He’s been talking about it all week.”
“I never would have thought they’d become such fast friends,” Dara says, rolling her eyes affectionately. “My sweet nerdy husband and your intense boxing coach boyfriend. Who would have thought? Thick as thieves, those two.”
“I know,” I say, shaking my head. “It’s deeply weird and I love it.”
We walk another half block, the late afternoon light catching the windows of the buildings around us and turning everything golden. Spring in New York is its own kind of magic, the city shaking off the gray of winter and coming alive again.
