“Next year,” Cooper promised, pressing his lips to my hairline. “If you want.”
Next year.
I could have this. I could be doing all thisnext year.
And the one after. And the one after that.
“I want,” I said, voice catching on howmuchI wanted it. “That’s, umm. I didn’t tell you what I’d figured out, I think, because I hadn’t finished figuring it out.”
“But you have now?”
I licked my lips, taking a moment to decide.
“Yeah. Yeah, I think I have. It’s… it’s like you said. I’m free. And I thought, after the accident, I’d never be free again. But that’s not true. I was never freebefore. Now I can have all of this. Otter Bay. Ice cream and almond milk lattes and oatmeal raisin cookies saved just for me. The most incredible kids to share how much I love ballet with. Benji, my secret favorite. And you.”
Cooper huffed. As though that last part wasn’t the best of all.
“Hey,” I said, propping myself up on my elbow so I could look down at him. “I meant everything I told Annabelle. You’re incredible. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.Youare. And there’s no part of you or your life I don’t want. If I can have it.”
He’d promised me I could before, but it wouldn’t hurt to hear it again.
The smile that spread over Cooper’s face was exactly what I wanted to see every day of my life from now on.
“All yours,” he said. “It’s all yours. If you’re sticking around for it.”
A smile just like his spread over my face, too much joy to contain rising up in my chest.
I bent down to kiss him, and didn’t back off for a long, long time.
28
COOPER
Something tickledmy nose as I woke, the first hints of dawn glowing beyond the thin drapes covering the bedroom window.
I smiled when I realized what it was. Felix’s hair.
I pressed a kiss to it, shifting my weight. Felix was still curled up against me, the knee of his injured leg tucked between my thighs. Deliciously naked.
He grunted as I ran my fingers along the soft skin of his thigh. When he pulled back, eyelids fluttering open, it was like something out of a fairy tale. As though I’d woken him from a hundred years of sleep with true love’s idle touch.
“Morning,” I murmured, running my thumb over his lower lip.
“Does it have to be?” Felix asked.
I laughed. It didn’t quite break the spell, but it reminded me this wasreal. It wasn’t a fairy tale. All of it had really happened.
It was still a little hard to believe how lucky I’d gotten.
“Sorry. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you, but I can’t do anything about the sunrise.”
Felix huffed, tucking his face into the crook of my neck. “When does Benji get up?”
“Not for a while yet. Unless that was my hint to leave?” I teased. Felix had made itveryclear last night that he wanted me around.
“Literally the opposite,” he said in confirmation of what I already knew.
I pressed another kiss to his hair, smiling into it.
