Page 108 of Eight Weeks
“Nah. Bought them for myself, figured I earned them.”
“You don’t even like purple.”
His shoulders lift into a shrug. “It’s my favorite color, didn’t you know? My girlfriend is so obsessed with everything wisteria, I sort of had to learn to love it.”
“It’s still light purple,” I correct.
“Icicle, it will forever be wisteria.” Eventually, he does hand the lilacs over to me, quickly pressing his lips to mine one more time before he walks us both over to the hay bales to sit. Come to realize, he does look a little exhausted. How long has he been on the road for to reachthislevel of exhaustion?
I lay the lilacs down on the floor, leaning into Aaron’s body as his arm loops around me to pull me close.
“Jane told me you’re moving?”
Oh. Alright, makes it a little easier on me to start this topic off. “Yeah, uh, I might move to NYC.”
“You are?” His eyes widen drastically, a lot of emotions crossing his face when he realizes what I just said. “Wait, New York City. Like where I will be?”
“Yeah, I just need to find the courage to ask my boyfriend if he would like to move there together.”
He looks at me with a serious expression now. A mix of confusion and concern hiding in his features. “Together-together?”
I nod, fearing his answer. Even if he says no, it wouldn’t be the end of the world, right?
Slowly, and I meanveryslowly, one side of his mouth tips up into a lopsided smile. “You sure you thought that through? Because I heard living with a pro hockey player can getreallytiring. Especially when they come home late at night from a game and just throw their bag anywhere and fall right into bed.”
My jaw drops. “You got drafted?!”
“Don’t be so surprised.”
A joy-filled shriek leaves me before I fall all over him, pushing his back into the hay and swinging a leg over his body to sit right on top of him. My hands rest on his chest, feeling his heart beating under my palm. “I always wanted to date a pro hockey player.”
Aaron holds me by my hips, making sure I do not fall off him, or simply because he wants his hands on my body. Either way, I am not complaining.
“I’ve got good news for you then. You’ll be marrying a pro hockey player in a few years.”
Now that, that I can live with. Under one condition. “That guy better be you or else I don’t want it. You just told me hockey players can be tiring, and I won’t put myself through that exhaustion for anyone but you.”
“Oh, shit. I kind of promised you to Miles but let me just cancel everything then.”
And so I suppose, after thirteen years apart, I will finally get my happily ever after with the guy I couldn’t get out of my head since the beginning of my time.
Epilogue
Sofia
“I like shiny things, but I’d marry you with paper rings”—paper rings by Taylor Swift
Three Years Later
“You cannot say a wordto Lily before I found a way to tell my friends without hurting their feelings,” Aaron says just as we enter our apartment.
It’s a super fancy apartment complex with a lot, and more importantly, huge rooms. The apartment is way too big for Aaron and me, but since we might never move out, it could make for a great space to raise kids together. Not yet, but sometime in the future.
With two extra bedrooms apart from ours, of course, a total of four bathrooms, an enormous living and dining space plus kitchen and balcony, I’d say we don’t even have to buy a house. Unless, of course, Aaron still wants to design a house for us to live in. I’d be okay with that, too. But a bonus for the apartment complex is, the other guys live here too.
Not in our apartment, obviously, but we’re neighbors.
No, seriously, Colin and Lily live right across from us. It takes us a good three steps until we can reach the other’s apartment door. Grey and Miles aren’t on our floor as it’s only two apartments on each, but they’re in the building as well. As so are some other of the NYR players. Yup, we moved right into an apartment complex that’s basically owned by jocks because it’s the most fancyandclosest building to the arena.
