“We so did! If I hadn’t loved you already, I would have fallen for you the day I heard that story,” he said staunchly. “And in the end, the boy realizes he’s smart and brave on his own.”
I shook my head. “Well, it’s definitely not drawn from my life, then. If I’d had the courage to tell you how I felt a year ago…”
Teagan’s mouth twisted up in a lopsided smile. “Yeah, I dunno about that. I might have pushed too hard, too fast. Idefinitely wouldn’t have trusted that it was real. I might have been waiting for the other shoe to drop once you got to know the real me.” He rolled into me and pressed a kiss to my lips before flopping back down. “I definitely wouldn’t have thought we could be friendsandbe in love, since I’d never experienced it before.”
“We definitely don’t have to pick one,” I teased.
“As it happens, we don’t.” He grinned. “So I’m not going to regret the year we spent as friends. But we will have alotof sex to make up for. Just to kinda warn you about that.”
“I appreciate the warning,” I said solemnly. “I will start addressing that this very weekend. In fact, we can address it again in about… hmm.” I gauged my own exhaustion level, my refractory period, my age, my lack of sustenance, and Teagan’s need for another shower and calculated eight hours. Then I looked over at the naked perfection beside me, his hair spilling like red flames across his pillow, and realized that things with Teagan would never go according to the numbers. “Thirty minutes,” I said hoarsely. “Maybe sooner if you let me tell you my dirty fantasies about your couch.”
His laughter shook the bed, and I mentally revised thirty minutes to twenty.
Then he grinned. “Speaking of weekends… we’re gonna have to spend ours in Vermont, least for the next little while, since Molly won’t be able to travel with a newborn, and we’re gonna have lots of work to do. You up for that?”
“Oh. Ha.” I cleared my throat. I couldn’t believe I’d forgotten. “Now that you mention it…” How could I tell him about the job opportunity without upsetting him? I didn’t want him to think I had any regrets about choosing him.
I didn’t. Not one, not ever.
“Now that I mention it…” He looked at me expectantly.
“Well, I mean… I got this maybe job offer. Or, I’m expecting one anyway.” I filled him in on the details of the position. “But it’s in Vermont, at Hannabury, so I already decided it wasn’t important.”
Teagan stared at me. “Not important? How so? You love Vermont. You love Hannabury.”
I shrugged. “Yeah, but… I love you more, and you’re here, so...”
Teagan’s eyes got suspiciously wet.
Damn it.
This was exactly what I had been hoping to avoid. “Babe,” I began. “It’s fine, really.”
He sat up on the bed and clasped the top of still-damp head with both hands. “Oh my God, John. This… it’s the good luck you’ve been waiting for! You finally got your dream job. It’s perfect for you. Of course you’re going to take it.” He squirmed and made a shimmying move that I recognized as his good-news wiggle, the one he did when our favorite pizza was on sale or when he’d found out my sister was having a baby. “We’re moving to Vermont!”
“We are?” I asked stupidly. “But what about your career plans?”
“My plans were to find a teaching job and to keep writing with Molly, both of which I can do from our new home in Vermont.”
“Our new home,” I breathed, hardly daring to believe it.
Teagan squeezed my bicep with both hands. “Our new home with room for adog,” he clarified. “I can picture it so clearly. Can’t you?” He proceeded to describe in great detail what our life was going to be like in Vermont, how we’d have to plan for Guncle Groundhog Day and Teagan Is My Favorite Uncle Tuesdays, and just like that I suddenlycouldpicture it. Me and Teagan, together forever. “There will, of course, be sparkling apple juice and those fruit roll-up things that… ah… kids like.”
I thought about the hidden box of fruit roll-ups that werecurrently behind the fiber cereal in our kitchen cabinet. “Yes. The kids. You’re so thoughtful, baby.”
His eyes shone with excitement and joy—the things that made him the most Teagan of Teagans—the things that made him bright like a shining sun I wanted to revolve around all of my days. “John,” he said, meeting my gaze. “It’s going to be amazing.”
My entire body felt like a zipping parade of tiny sparklers. Itwasgoing to be amazing. But thejobwas not the luckiest thing that had ever happened to me.
I swallowed my fears and reached for his hand.
“T. Pick one: are we going as boyfriends or husbands?”
EPILOGUE
TEAGAN
“You’re not coming, are you?”I accused the second Fern’s voicemail beeped. “Fern, you are fifty-two minutes late. Fifty-two minutes is not ‘Surprise! John and I stopped to get you maple donuts, Teagan!’ Fifty-two minutes is not ‘Oops, we turned left instead of right coming off the highway and ended up at the Little Pippin Hollow Tree Museum.’ Fifty-two minutes is ‘Sorry, Teagan, I have decided to forsake nine years of friendship and abscond with the U-Haul containing your sofa, every single one of your loaf pans, andoh yeah,the love of your lifeto build a life in Canada amongst the moose and Mounties, leaving you all alone in your brand-new house in the wilds of Vermont!’” I closed my eyes and sniffled delicately, feeling incredibly put-upon by this turn of events. “Let me remind you that you don’t even like Celine Dion.”
