Page 82 of HEA: Happily Ever After

My heart squeezed so tight that I worried it might shatter. Tears blurred my eyes at the truth of her words.

“This is love,” Abby said, her voice soft but fierce. “And it’s the kind of love that’s worth fighting for.”

“But how do I convince him?” I asked. “How do I make him give us a chance?”

She shook her head. “You can’t. But Hugh… if you’re honest with yourself, you’re holding back out of fear too.”

“What? I am not! I’m the one who?—”

“Is so worried that time is ticking down and Oscar hasn’t come to some huge revelation that you’re looking for an escape hatch?” Abby suggested. “Is trying to hide behind some idealized version of love as an excuse for not being all in?”

I stared at her, stunned.

“Have you told Oscar how you feel?” she asked gently.

“N-no. Of course not! If I did that… If I told him… I…” I swallowed.

“You’d be in the same boat on January first that you’re in right now,” she concluded a trifle smugly and, worse, correctly. “No one can predict the future, Hugh. Mom and Dad are a prime example of that—they planned on growing old together, and they didn’t get that chance. Life is full of risk and unexpected pain. But it’s full of those things whether you hide from them or not.”

I took a deep breath. “I love him,” I blurted. “I’m… I’m…” I let out a laugh. “I’m completely out of my mind in love with him, Abs.”

“I know you are,” she said.

“He’s it for me, he really is.”

“Yup.”

“And more than that,” I said with growing confidence, “I’m the one he’s been waiting for.”

“Hell yes, you are.”

“So…” Another deep breath helped me ignore the swooping feeling in my stomach, the sudden dizziness in my head. “So I’m going to tell him I love him on New Year’s Day. And I’ll tell him that if that freaks him out and he wants to split up, or he wants to go back to being text-only friends for a while… then… then… Christ, I guess that’s what we’ll do. Because eventually? He is going to realize that what we have is the real thing, and I’m willing to wait for him. I just… I want him in my life. And I’m going to show him that he’s worth waiting for. I won’t let him push me away. I will stay.” I gave her a worried glance. “Does that sound a little stalker-ish? I was going for a kind of Queen Charlotte ‘I will stand with you between the heavens and the earth’ vibe, but?—”

Abby laughed so hard she nearly rocked off the sofa, which was not quite the encouragement I’d been hoping for, but when she popped up again, curls askew, she was grinning ear to ear. “That’s it, Hugh. You nailed it. You’re willing to throw your perfect image out the window. You’re willing for your great romantic love to be a… a platonic text friendship for a little while if that’s what it takes for you to be with him. That’s all in, baby.” She cupped my face in her hand, then leaned in and pressed a kiss to my cheek. “I love you, and I believe if anyone can make that prickly bastard change his mind about love, it’s you.” She pushed to her feet. “And if that doesn’t work, we’ll get Rafa involved. He keeps telling me he knows people. Now… you want some of Dad’s spiked eggnog? I made a huge batch.”

* * *

By the time Oscar and I made it to Vermont for the wedding later that week, I was exhausted.

I’d spent a large part of Christmas Day FaceTiming with Oscar and his family before having a quiet dinner with Abby and Dex. Somehow, possibly defying the laws of space and time, Oscar managed to make it back to the city before me the following afternoon, and we’d spent the rest of the week lounging around in pajamas, making lazy breakfasts at all hours of the day, strolling hand in hand through the Winter Village in Bryant Park, and… well, having sex.

Copious amounts of sex.

The amount of sex you might have if you thought sex might be outlawed at any moment.

The sex you might have if you thought the world was about to end.

The kind of sex you’d have if you were utterly and completely in love with a man who might not love you back and were trying not to blurt out the truth until you absolutely had to, in case he laughed in your face, or lashed out in anger and accused you of changing the rules, or demanded your immediate departure with a gut-wrenching “I told you so.”

Seriously. So. Much. Sex.

I’d never been insatiable like I was that week. At some point, I’d expected the heat between us to simmer down, for the craving to let up, but it hadn’t. If Oscar even looked at me, my skin itched with need, and my dick filled.

And Oscar was just as bad. The strange anxiety that had come over him shortly before Christmas hadn’t gone away. In fact, it might have gotten worse. I still didn’t know whether it was because he was nervous that he’d finally decided to open his heart to his family or because he was as aware as I was—for good or for bad—that our relationship clock was ticking down, but the only time he seemed to settle was when as much of my skin was touching as much of his skin as humanly possible.

Consequently, by the time we got in Oscar’s private plane for the trip north—Oscar’s second such trip in a week—I was simultaneously wrung out and buzzing on endorphins, terrified and excited, and also low-key wishing Hyacinth and her fiancé would have a falling-out that wasn’t serious enough to cancel the wedding but serious enough to delay it for a few days.

Or weeks.

---