Page 75 of A Really Bad Idea

“Were you talking to someone?” He tosses the towel onto the sink and steps out.

I pop up off the bed. “Just running through my list of things to do tomorrow.”

He nods. “Ready?”

I nod back and then halt. “Do we have to go back to the gala? I don’t feel … fresh.”

He laughs as he opens the hotel room door. “I’ll take you home.”

We walk down the hall to the elevator and step inside. We’re connected in a far more powerful way than ever before, and yet I feel more distant to him than when he was across the country all those years ago.

We step into the lobby and walk out the gold doors onto the red-carpeted steps of The Plaza. There’s a cab dropping people off in front, so he jogs down the steps to claim it and stands by the open back door.

“Share a cab with me?” he asks.

I slide in the backseat. When he takes a seat beside me, he gives the driver my address.

I wrangle my brain, trying to figure out if I want him to come over. Yes, is the first answer that pops into my head. No, is the logical one.

All the pieces fell into place for us tonight, but they’re only pieces. They could easily fall apart.

As we drive up Central Park West, I think about my fountain and the many wishes I’ve made upon it.

I think about the moment Christian and I danced there just a few weeks ago when I told him about my dream. I remember the day he followed me there, waiting for his answer. I gave him one that night. And then there was the kiss we shared in the park. Our first kiss. The fountain was there to celebrate that, too.

Everything that has happened between me and Christian has moved so fast. That’s what happens when you’re around a man with a magnetic field as strong as Christian’s.

When we pull up to my building, he tells the driver to wait and steps out of the car, giving me a hand to help me out. I walk toward the entrance, but he pulls me back. This time, his arms envelop me into a tender embrace. I drop my shoulders and fall into his wide expanse with my head in his chest and my hands gripping his back.

“We did it,” he says as he moves my body, so we’re face-to-face.

I laugh lightly. “We did.”

He places a knuckle under my chin and pulls my gaze to his. “I don’t know what to do next.”

My heart comes back up to the forefront and flutters. I’m happy to feel those flutters again because I was starting to think I’d gone stone cold. “You and me both.”

As he holds on to me with his strong arms, I move my hand to his chest and play with the lapel. He seeks my attention again.

He rests his forehead against mine and confesses, “I’ve always been flirty with you, but this is intimate.”

“You don’t regret it, do you?”

His eyes widen as if I insulted and shocked him at the same time. “Never. Not even a thought. Do you?”

“No,” I answer quickly. “My only regret is, I didn’t plan what comes next.”

He laughs and kisses me on the forehead. “We’ll just be us,” he says with a shrug. Like it’s perfectly natural. “If we start overthinking things, we’ll risk becoming something we’re not, and I don’t think either of us wants that.”

I take a deep, deep breath and exhale loudly. “Us,” I reiterate. “I wouldn’t want to be anything else.”

“I’ll talk to you tomorrow?”

“If I’m around,” I say as I step out of his embrace and walk toward the door. “I’m a busy woman.”

He places his hand over his heart and appraises me. “Spin class, grocery shopping, catch up on your shows. I’ll call when you’re a box of Kleenex deep while watching This Is Us and drinking bad wine.”

“You’re so smug.”