Page 22 of On the Line

“Our fake relationship is officially over.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

His hand slides up my back. “So what are we now?”

I pretend to think it over. “You can be my real boyfriend. If you want.”

A grin spreads slowly across his face. “Sweetheart, that’s the best offer I’ve ever gotten.”

I laugh and kiss him again, and he doesn’t let go of me for a long time.

On Friday I’m coming back. I have no idea what happens after that, and for once in my life I don’t need to.

I came up here to prove to everybody that I was perfectly happy being the only single one in the group. Maybe I was. But standing on this deck under the string lights with Liam’s arms around me, I’m willing to admit this is so much better.

Epilogue

Liam

One year later

Delaney catches a fish before I even get my line in the water.

"I've got one!"

I look over just in time to see her rod bend. "No way."

"Yes way." She braces her bare feet against the dock. "Get the net."

"It's probably just a tiny bluegill."

"Get. The. Net."

I laugh and grab it. A year ago she couldn't tie a lure onto a line without losing it. Now she spends more time fishing than I do, which I consider both a personal accomplishment and a serious threat to my masculinity.

Murphy, our dog, jumps up from his spot in the sun and starts barking like he's personally responsible for the catch.

"Calm down," I tell him. "You didn't do anything."

Delaney reels in a decent-sized bass, and I let out a low whistle. "Okay. I take it back."

She beams at me. "About what?"

"Everything bad I've ever said about your fishing skills."

"That's a lot of things."

I chuckle. “Fine, I’ll admit it, sweetheart. You’re a natural.”

I scoop the fish into the net and lift it onto the dock, and Delaney crouches beside it, grinning. She's wearing cutoff shorts and one of my old T-shirts, her hair piled on top of her head. There's a coffee mug sitting next to her tackle box and a muddy paw print on her knee, courtesy of Murphy.

This is exactly what I wanted. I just didn’t know it before.

Turns out my friends were right all along.

She started spending most weekends here after that first one. By October, she was staying through Mondays, then Tuesdays, and sometime around Christmas she stopped pretending she was driving back to Charlotte every week. In February, we carried the last of her boxes into my house. Most of her clients are still in Charlotte; she just designs for them from the desk by our living room window now.