In a trance, I nod. Somehow both unsure about and okay with this option.
I don’t know what the future holds, and for the first time in along time, it’s better that way. Right now, I’m operating with one goal. He has blue eyes, dimples, a crooked smile. He takes my tired body and pulls it into his arms.
Today, this month, maybe all year,he’swhat I’m working toward. Not because I want to deserve him, but because I already do.
But when I leave the office a little while later, my hands skimming over the racks of sample clothes on my way out the door, it occurs to me this place and these people don’t actually needmeanymore.
Camila and I canbothgo, and Revenant will stay.
It’s fucking freeing.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Camila and David’s wedding weekend is perfect.
It’sperfect.
At the bridal brunch, we laugh until our stomachs are sore, retelling every story we remember from the bachelorette. At the rehearsal dinner, in my newly finished midnight dress, I give the speech my mom and I wrote, with practiced ease. David’s best man comes up to the mic afterward and makes a joke about the unfairness of having to follow a CEO. Which doesn’t make any sense considering Ididhave to pause three times to swallow my tears.
On wedding day, the weather is a balmy seventy degrees, the breeze light, the sun cascading through the trees and bathing the outdoor venue in an effervescent halo. Camila walks down the grassy, petal-laden aisle like a goddess, and she looks so damn happy watching David waiting for her that I marvel at how special it is to get to witness this kind of commitment.
We dance all night, and right before Camila and David maketheir grand exit, David pulls me aside and thanks me for loving his wife just as much as he loves her.
Which basically just ruins me.
“Where’s Will?” he asks after I stop blubbering over him.
“He had family in town,” I say, making an excuse. He’d gotten a verbal invitation to the wedding but had texted me to say he was going to spend as much time with Zoe and his mom as possible while they were down here.
David nods. “Maybe we’ll catch him again soon? When we get settled in New York.”
“I hope so,” I say.
“You’re done now, J.” David turns in the direction of the tunnel of people holding unlit sparklers outside the reception hall. Camila comes out of the side bathroom, running toward us with a big smile on her face, and her brand-new husband says to me, “You did a great job.”
The very next morning, I text and ask if I can see him.
Will tells me he’s at Lake Travis with his family, but I should come over at five o’clock after he drops them off at the airport.
We text all day to tide ourselves over. I tell him about Camila’s wedding; Will sends me pictures of his canoe against the sparkling lake water.
Soft living aesthetic!I joke.
It’s calling you,he replies.
I spend the afternoon getting ready. Like a nervous teenager headed off on her first date. Blush on my cheeks, a gentle curl in my hair, jean shorts and an oversized cotton button-down.
I knock on his front door with a tiny shake in my bones. Behind me, the sun is splashing across my neck and legs, but I can’t help but shiver.
After thirty seconds, Will opens the door.
“I really love you,” I say, themomentI catch his eye. “And I really mean it. I actually love the way you snore. It’s like a noise machine that was designed to remind me you’re there as I drift off to sleep. That you aren’t made up. You’re real, and you’re breathing. You’rebadlybreathing, but you’re breathing near me. And I love that you’ve made mistakes, and that you shared them with me, so I don’t feel alone with mine. I love that you remember, that you bought me fabric becausemonthsago, I mentioned offhandedly that I might want it for when I was doing nothing. I love everything you ever DM’d to the Revenant account. I love how you held me in your arms the night I was sick even though I was still holding you at a distance.”
Will’s dimples pop out, familiar and perfect and adorable. His lips are pressed together but expressive all the same.
“We can spend some of our weekends on the couch, you watching sports and me doing something else nearby that doesn’t require my participation in your hobby but is still respectful of it. And probably, on those days, something you’re cooking is in the oven or on the stove. And maybe—not soon, but one day—we have a doodle. Because of your allergies, and because I just like them.”
“Josie,” he tries to say, his voice gentle.
