“It’s soon, and we can dress up, eat a meal, dance together. Consider it our second first date.”
“Wait, wait.” I shake my head, pushing myself off his lap and settling beside him. “Everything I said was true, but I still don’t know if I’m leaving at the end of summer yet.”
He pauses, passes a hand fleetingly over his mouth in consideration. “That’s fine. Honestly, I’m willing to do this with you if you want to, Blair. I’ve let enough come between us to know none of it was worth not having you. Distance or not, you can take all the time you need to figure it out, but if I’m that big a part of your consideration, we might as well start now.”
My brain can hardly process the words coming out of his mouth being reality. And perhaps it is my inability to process this being real that makes me so bold. I grab the hand fiddling over his jaw.
“I’ve done enough friendshiping with you for a lifetime,Declan. And enough living without you, too. If I haven’t made my intentions clear, I’d like to never do either of those things ever again.Please.” I try for ironic, gripping his wrist dramatically, but the words are true. He barks a laugh at my delivery, and I feel an electric bolt of satisfaction.
“And now that I know that”—he kisses me between the words, cradling my head with the hand I was holding—“I want to make my intentions very clear.” His eyes bore into mine like he’s been set free from invisible shackles. “I want you. And I will do whatever it takes to make you remember why you wanted me.”
My heart takes off without permission from my brain and I let it. There’s no running after it now. “I can get on board with that,” I whisper, and picture myself accepting the award for biggest understatement of the century. A satisfied smile blooms across his face, and I press my lips to his to taste it.
Little does he know, remembering why I want him isn’t the hard part. It’s trusting that I should.
Chapter 22
The next day, I follow my mom around to the convenience stores to help her make a list of things she needs to get done or hire someone else to do. We’re driving home when we pass the turn that leads to the house Lottie left me.
“Can we stop at the cottage? I forgot something there when I stopped by Tuesday,” I tell my mom.
“Of course, honey,” she replies eagerly. A beat passes and I can somehow hear the cogs in my mom’s brain turning over before she says, “You went to the cottage by yourself?”
“Mm-hmm,” I hum. “Is that surprising?”
“No!” she says, overly cheery like her real answer is yes.“I thought you were feeling some mixed emotions toward it. That’s all.”
“I was. Am, I mean. But Declan looked at it with me, like you suggested, and he even sketched this little blueprint with ideas to spruce it up.”
My mom gasps, delighted. “He did not.”
“He did. Did you know he renovated his own house?”
“No, I did not. But it doesn’t surprise me. That boy is very determined.” She shakes her head in awe.
“Don’t I know it,” I mutter, and smile to myself.
After a few pacing steps to search for the crewneck I could have sworn I left here, I give up and look for where my mom has wandered off to. Through the bedroom’s clear doors, I find her standing in the garden. She’s brushing her fingers over the lavender heads in the sun’s gentle glow, just like Declan did when I brought him here. They’re so fluffy, you can’t help but touch them.
There’s a faint smile on her lips. She takes a deep breath, and as she exhales, the lines in her forehead fade. I can’t remember the last time I saw her this at ease. I step through the sliding doors and join her, dancing my fingers lazily over the silky lavender tops.
“Isn’t this gorgeous?” my mom says, closing her eyes to bask in the sun.
“It is,” I reply in a weak voice.
We stand in the garden, letting the warmth drench us for minutes on end without saying a word. And in those few minutes, flashes of what could have been and what is flip through my mind like a roll of film.
Me—what could have been: moving into a tiny New York City apartment. Lottie alive, Declan estranged. Work and work and more work on the horizon.
The film skips.
Me—what could be: moving into a cottage by the sea. The chasm between Declan and me closed. The bridge: the street between our houses. Lottie gone, but my mom still here. An old, forgotten dream unearthed and sprouting to life—a book I thought I might never write, about a boy I thought I might never see again.
And somehow, perhaps miraculously, the fragility of my new decision becomes unbreakable inside me.
“Mom?” I interrupt the blissful silence.
“Yes, hon?” She paces through the garden, inspecting each flower and leaf.
