CHAPTER 33NOW
August 9, seventh day of “vacation”
I’m staring at the ocean, saying my goodbyes, doing everything I can to remember exactly what it looks like, to hold that memory close and dear, until I can see it again.
Alex walks up behind me and wraps me in his arms, drawing my back to his front. “Time to go, Ted. Argos is asleep, and we agreed we wanted to make sure we got as much time as possible on the road before his noxious nervous-car-ride farts made an appearance.”
I sigh, still staring at the ocean. “Can’t we stay here forever? Everything here feels… perfect.”
He presses a tender kiss to my hair, swaying me gently side to side. “Nah. But we can come back.”
I peer up at him and pout.
“Don’t give me that sad-kitty face,” he says.
Sad-kitty face.
I gasp as I turn inside his arms. “You remember that night at the bar?”
“Every moment. First time I told you I loved you. And you said you loved me back. I could never not remember that.”
I curl my arms around him, holding his eyes. “I do love you.”
He smiles. “I know. I love you, too. And I love the life we’ve got back home, waiting for us. It’s not perfect. It’s not the beach. But it’s ours. And… it’s everything to me.”
“It’s everything to me, too.” I set my hand on his chest, tracing over his heart the familiar shape with my finger. “Fine,” I sigh playfully. “I guess we can go back home.”
“Excellent.” He hugs me to him, his eyes locked on mine. “I was thinking… maybe soon we’ll find a house, a home that’s good for both of us?”
That makes me smile so wide my cheeks ache.
“There she is,” he murmurs. “Looking… almost happy-ish?”
I shake my head. “Even better than that.”
I rest my hand along his face, my thumb sweeping across his cheek. I know it won’t always be this way, as close to perfect as it all feels right now, that we’ll be sad and hurt and struggle. But I also know, through it all, we’ll have what matters most, a love that lasts, two hands held, two hearts reaching for each other. Anusthat will tell a story that begins and ends withwe.
Peering up at Alex, I do something I never have before. I open up my heart, as that little storyteller starts to weave her tale; I tell him exactly what she says.
Thea Meyer gazed at the man she loved, her best friend, the one who’d made her feel the most tenderly safe and the most wildly reckless. The one who’d changed her life for the braver, the more beautiful, always for the better.
She couldn’t believe her luck, the chance to have found him, to love him for as long as he’d let her.
She couldn’t wait for what their story would bring. For whatever came next. Because finally, she had him.
Her happy ending.
EPILOGUE
August 1, two summers later
It’s my favorite time of day at the beach—sunset. The sky is a watercolor of glowing light, streaks of petal pink and violet, lush citrus orange, cool water blue. The waves roar steadily, and a warm sea breeze kisses my skin.
I set a plate down on the patio table, cup my hands around my mouth, and yell, “Come eat!”
My heart catches at the sight below me, on the shore. Lauren smiling wide, hand in hand with her partner, Zazie, who throws the ball for Argos to chase across the sand. Jen crouched over Mia’s shell art as Mia explains the design to Jen and her boyfriend, Luke, a fellow teacher from another school whom she started seeing a little over a year ago. Luke is a soft-spoken, gentle giant whom I couldn’t love more for Jen, though she’s taking things very slowly with him—so slowly, I wish they’d hurry up, because he’s perfect for her. Not that I’m one to talk. I know that, sometimes, you need time. That, as clichéd as the saying is, timeisa healer and, maybe even more so, a teacher, if you let it take you where you need to go.
“Ted?”
