Hey, so the thing is, I tried to get an earlier flight home so I could be there for birthday night, but the airlines hate me and my dad’s plane is in Pittsburgh for some reason and my dad doesn’t even have one single billionaire friend with a plane because he’s the good kind of billionaire who helps people and shit.
Which I usually love except for today because that means I can’t get home to you, and I hate that.
I miss the shit out of you, and I wish we were together right now. My birthday sucks without you.
I blow out a breath and stare at the screen, waiting for the dots to bounce. And then I wait some more. Tyler almost always responds to my messages right away, and he rarely doesn’t pick up the phone, so of course today is the day for both those rare occurrences.
Love that for me.
When ten more minutes go by and he still doesn’t answer or call me back, I exit out of the messages with a huff, opening mymusic app instead. Because when the love of my life is on the other side of the country and I can’t be with him on my birthday and I made a massive career decision but still feel like my life is on hold until I can get home and get it started, there is only one thing to do.
I hit the song I want and bounce off the bed. Rummaging through my suitcase, I crow in victory when my hand closes around the handle of my hairbrush. I pull it out just as the first notes of “Defying Gravity”come blaring out of my phone speaker, and, holding the hairbrush to my mouth and channeling my inner Elphaba, I start to sing.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
TYLER
The second the elevator doors open on Sophie’s hotel floor, I barrel out, the bags I’m carrying bouncing against my hips as I dash down the hall to her room. My stomach swims with excitement, my heart practically beating out of my chest because it’s been a long ass day, but I fucking made it, and in two seconds, I’m going to have my girl in my arms.
Coming to a screeching halt outside room 3814, I glance at my watch and almost laugh when I see the time. I couldn’t have scripted a more perfect entrance if I was writing my very own rom-com. With the biggest grin I’ve ever grinned plastered to my face, I raise my hand and knock on the door.
Two seconds later, it flies open, and my heart literally soars. Sophie is dressed in one of my old college football T-shirts that hangs to mid-thigh, pink knee socks pulled all the way up her legs. Her hair curls madly down her back, pink tinsel winking under the overhead lights. She stares at me, mouth falling open slightly, gorgeous eyes narrowing like she’s trying to figure out if I’m really standing here.
She is the prettiest girl in the entire fucking world, and I am the luckiest guy on earth that she gets to be mine.
Grinning even wider, I lean on the doorframe. “I’m not late.”
Emotion swims into Sophie’s beautiful browns, catching the reference just like I knew she would. Our eighteenth birthday. The night we made a pact to never, ever spend a birthday night apart.
And we won’t.
Not this one, or any of the ones that come after.
Then the emotion is gone and she grins back at me, her face lighting up, and everything inside me lighting up right along with it as she puts a hand on her hip, her grin turning to a smirk. Fuck, I love her so much. “Cutting it a little close there, Harry.”
I shrug. “It’s ten fifty-seven, Sal,” I say, dropping all my bags to the floor just inside her room and taking a step towards her. “I still have three minutes. There was a storm in Pittsburgh that delayed the flight. High winds that kept us circling above San Francico for freaking ever. Traffic from the airport was murder and it took me a hundred years to get here, and then I had to talk my way up to your room because security downstairs seems to have mistaken this hotel for the CIA headquarters or something. You’re lucky I made it at all.”
Sophie glances down at the phone in her hand and then back up at me, her smile so big it touches her eyes. “Two minutes now.” Then, with a laugh, she throws herself at me, wrapping her arms tight around my neck and her legs around my waist, holding on like she never, ever wants to let go. I slide an arm around her waist and tangle my other hand in her hair, bringing her closer until there’s not one single inch of space between us. And with her heart beating against mine, her arms around me and her hair ticking my chin, I am absolutely, perfectly, one hundred percent home.
“Happy birthday, Soph,” I murmur, kissing the side of her head, breathing her in, memorizing her scent and her touch andthe way she feels wrapped around me, sure I have never been happier in my life. That no one has.
“Fuck, I love you,” Sophie murmurs, burying her face in my neck, her lips landing on my skin, tattooing herself there for all of eternity. “I love you so much, I don’t even know where to put it all.”
“Oh baby,” I murmur, my own lips finding her forehead, her cheeks, any stretch of skin I can reach because I don’t want to stop kissing her. Maybe I never will, I think, as I tighten my arms around her. “I love you too. So, so much. You can put it right here with me. I’ll keep it safe and give all my love, everything I am, right back to you.”
I tip my head back and grin at her, so happy she’s here and she’s mine. Sophie and me, best friends forever. Soulmates. Loves of a lifetime. All. Everything. Just the way it was always supposed to be. “I fucking missed you, Soph. Can I please kiss you properly? Like, on the lips and with tongue. Lots and lots of tongue. I think I’ll die if I don’t.”
Sophie laughs, pressing our foreheads together, her legs tightening around my waist. “Can’t have that,” she says with a grin, and then she leans in and lays her lips on mine. The second our lips touch, she melts into me with a sigh, and I run my tongue over her bottom lip, licking into her mouth as soon as she opens for me. I dive in, our tongues tangling as I taste her, devouring her like she’s the air I need to live. And maybe she is. Because as she moans, as our hearts hammer together and our bodies press impossibly closer, I’ve never felt more alive.
“God,” I mumble, trailing a line of kisses over her jaw, flicking my tongue behind her ear and grinning when she gasps. “I could kiss you for hours. Days. Weeks. Maybe even forever. I think forever sounds like the perfect amount of time.”
Sophie tilts her head to give me better access to her neck, and I lick a path to her collarbone, knowing for sure I’ve never tasted anything so fucking sweet. “I think that can be arranged, but first I have a million questions,” she says, before tangling herhands in my hair and bringing her mouth back to mine in a long, hot kiss.
“Ask me anything,” I practically rasp, obsessed with the way her mouth moves over mine, the way her fingers tangle in my hair. Obsessed with her.
“Why are there sixteen bags on my hotel room floor?”
Her question brings me back to reality and I grin, remembering exactly why I’m here. “For birthday night.”
