“Jay—” She wraps her hand around my arm, and I glance to my right. She’s smiling.
“Sorry, I guess I’m excited to see you,” I say, turning my attention back to the winding roadway that leads out of labyrinth of O’Hare.
I pull up to the light before the expressway, Colby’s hand still on my arm, so I take it in my hand and bring her wrist to my mouth, kissing it.
“Jay . . . this best day ever? It’s better than you think.”
And that’s when I see it. Her bright red polo shirt is stitched with the classic Texas T.
Texas.
The show.
My eyes widen and dart to hers.
“You’re serious!”
Her head bobs, and a second later, she squeals and throws her arms around me. I’m late to leave when the light goes green, earning me another honk and fist, but fuck that guy. I make theleft turn and immediately pull into the cellphone lot to hold her face in my hands and kiss her properly.
“You’re going to Texas?” My eyes blink with happy tears, and hers do the same.
“We sound like two people who just found out they’re having a baby.” She giggles.
A rush of electricity zaps down my spine, and I shake my head.
“Colby, I’m really fucking excited about this, and yes, it’s a close second on the scale of great news. But one day, when you tell me my baby is growing in that belly of yours? Actual fireworks are going to blast from my head, like a fucking halo of fire.”
Her giggling softens for a moment as though the weight of my commitment to her just slammed into her chest. We haven’t exactly talked about big moments like this, but I’m fine laying all my cards on the table. She should know what I see for us. What I want for us.
“Jayden,” she says, swallowing hard.
I drop my head for a minute and suck in my top lip.
“I’m sorry if I overwhelmed you with that. But I love you, and you need to know where my head is at. And that’s down the road. And we’d make it work with both of our careers. I don’t expect?—”
“Jayden,” she interrupts me. I lift my gaze to find her brow pulled in and her lips puckered on the verge of laughter.
“Did you seriously sayhalo of fire?” She blinks.
Phew! She’s not freaked out.
“I did. You want to see it now? I can make it happen. Hold on,” I squeeze my eyes shut tight and blow out my cheeks, as if that’s what one does to produce facial fireworks. Jayden fills the car with her laughter, then smooshes the air from my cheeks before pressing her lips to mine.
Then, cradling my face in her hands, she says the only words possible to reset my focus and shut me up.
“Now, take me home and fuck me already.”
I weave through traffic, hating every blasted snarl that delays us, but the thrill of seeing her in real life, of getting to touch her rather than touching myself and imagining, suddenly makes the forty-minute trek back to my apartment tolerable.
I grab her carryon along with my gear bag and drag them into my building, opting for the elevator to the second floor rather than the stairs.
“It smells like vomit in there,” I explain. The four college kids that shove their way into the elevator with us with a twenty-four pack of Old Style offer the explanation for me. Thankfully, they keep going up when we get off.
“Why do you live here?” she asks, noting the pizza boxes left in the hallway as we pass through on our way to my unit.
“It’s a co-op. With Loyola, I think. Hard to believe, but most of these drunk assholes are on track to become lawyers,” I joke.
Colby laughs. “No, that tracks, actually. I had to sit with a pretty serious team of lawyers this morning to go through my contract. Only one of them was mine. I’d have to drink shitty beer to forget my day too if I had to do their job.”
