Page 81 of Get A Fix

“It’s beautiful there.”

I snickered. “Not an answer.”

“No?”

I shook my head.

“I have no idea what’s happening right now.”

“That’s okay,” I soothed him, taking hold of his hand and easing him slowly forward, to me, until he was close enough to lean in and kiss. It was quick, my lips pressed to his only for a moment. “Something about me you need to know.”

He took a breath, calming.

“I will do the long distance with you, Ash Lennox, and it won’t be weird when we get back together because it’ll be like we were never apart.”

Long exhale like all the panicky energy was leaving his body, and he took my other hand when I offered it to him.

“At some point you might look around and say, I think I want to change my home base to Chicago.”

“It’s quite possible.”

“You’ll be ready then to make that change.”

His eyes never left mine.

“Maybe you won’t. But whatever I have to do to be in your life, I will do. I will fly, I will take vacations, and I will be in bed at night with you when it’s time for you to go to sleep as often as I possibly can so you will wake up and have me beside you in the morning.”

His eyes scrunched up tight, and I knew why. I did that myself to stave off tears.

“That’s my promise to you.”

“Okay,” he choked out, his voice ragged.

“But I don’t need a bracelet or even a ring,” I assured him. “I will be yours for as long as you’ll have me. Period.”

After a moment, he ground out, “Good, then. We can begin.”

I kissed him gently, then tugged him after me to get us moving. We walked in silence toward the elevators.

“It feels weird to think that you’ll fly to Turks and Caicos to finish your movie and I’ll go back to Chicago, but that’s all right. Because it would be like that anyway when you go off to make a movie, so that’ll be just like normal.”

He nodded.

“I know an actor has to go out and promote their movies, do the talk-show circuit and all that. I get it. And yours is not a life that lends itself to having a home and⁠—”

“But it could,” he said, and I heard the urgency in his voice, his desire for me to hear him. “If you were there. If you were the one. It could.”

The way he was looking at me, like I could decide his whole life right then and there, it was a lot to agree with, but I was more than willing to jump into the deep end with this man.

“Cooper?”

“We’ll try. I want to try.”

One moment he was searching my face, the next he lunged at me, catching me in his strong arms, clutching me tight.

“Don’t give up at the first sign of trouble,” he whispered fiercely. “Promise me.”

“I won’t. That’s not me. You’ll see,” I said, easing away from him, spitting in my hand and holding it out to him. “I promise you.”