Page 72 of Yours, Forever

I squealed, closed my eyes, and begged I'd survive it without embarrassing myself, or breaking the rules and kissing him in front of everyone.

He hugged me, held me tight, and did a half-twirl with me in his arms. Ocean water seeped into the cotton of my dress.

"I'm dizzy!" I yelled.

And half in drunken love with him. Ready to get him out of his clothes.

He let me stand on the sandy ground again, his laughter loud and reverberating against me. His hug didn't stop.

I indulged in a hug back, my arms over his shoulders. He gazed at me, a magnificent grin stretching over his face, and that damn twinkle in his eye brighter than ever. Blazing harder than the sun over us.

Kissing him in that moment would have been the right thing to write, in the story of us, if this were a romance. Except that I had been the one to strike through the option, because no love story was supposed to include an eventual divorce, or a hero that could leave me behind with a broken heart.

"Don't be sad, darling," he whispered into my ear. "This was a good moment. We can have a thousand more."

He continued to see straight through me, and his words gave me the exact reassurance I needed. We had a year or two before he got tired of us. We could have a few memories. I was sure I wouldn't forget this moment.

I sighed. "At least we have one less suit to find a place for now."

Chapter 21

Max

Even though my quickocean swim had been a spontaneous venture for the sake of a toddler and their parents, it left me with some precious memories. The way Eva's eyes had been glued to my body was something I never wanted to forget. It may not have been the echo of the feelings building inside of me, but it was a start. Easier to make something grow out of something than make it appear out of nothing.

She kept talking about me staying for a couple of years. It gave me time to make the magic happen. Somehow. Part of it could be a million little moments, where she could imagine us together. A future where I could belong in her life, maybe forever.

That's why receiving a new video from Leon worked in my favor in more ways than one.

I put my robe on and knocked at her bedroom door.

"Come in," she called, and I opened the door to her room.

I hadn't been there since the morning she let me sleep in her bed. Nothing had changed. The king-size bed was centered to the window, with bedside tables on each side. A built-in closet occupied the wall at its feet, next to the door, and the other two walls had a full-length mirror and a dresser on one side, and a glass door to the backyard and a painting on the other. Colors everywhere were different shades of cream, on the walls, sheets, and curtains. The exceptions were the teal blanket on the bed, the yellow lamps, and warm-toned wood of the furniture.

She sat on her side of the bed, pillows propped up and a book on her lap. Her hair was messy, gloriously so, and her sleeping tank top showed a delicious expanse of shoulders and skin I wished I could trail kisses on. I smiled at the thought, even if I couldn't follow the impulse.

I waved my phone at her. "I got another video. Would you like to see it?"

"Oh, interesting. Yes."

I sat next to her on the bed, and I pressed play to the video. This time, another security camera had caught us together, in a wide shot of a restaurant terrace overlooking the strip. We stood close to each other, with a drink in our hands and talking. Some flirting, from the way she smiled at me, and I put a strand of hair behind her ear.

I hummed. "We look way more intimate in this video. Easier to believe we were falling in love fast."

"Good news, in case we need to defend our marriage to your dad."

"I'm also happy to see that we were getting along well. We get along well, don't you think?"

Eva nodded in an absent-minded way, just as her eyebrow furrowed. It echoed her past self, who frowned in the video.

The gesture, blurry on the phone, still showed clear. Her seriousness, now so familiar, stole a smile out of me.

"I wonder if that's when I was telling you I needed a wife," I said.

"Makes me wonder what you saw that told you, yeah, I can ask her to marry me tonight."

I tracked the little movements we made in the video, no sound available, her reactions more visible than mine. Just two people in black and white, chatting about something with gravitas. Me putting all my cards on the table, and asking her to do something bold.