Page 71 of You Complicate Me

He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his splayed knees and giving her a hard side-eye. “So, let me get this straight. The dude loves you. You love him. And you dumped him on the off chance that he might one day decide shit is moving too fast and dump you?”

Well, it sounded really teenager-y when he put it like that. “Well, yes.”

Gage stood up and let out a disgusted sigh. “You dumbass. If I’d known that, I never would’ve made you Smirnoff Smoothies.”

Grace frowned up at him. “Why’d you think I dumped him?”

He threw his hands up in frustration. “I thought he loved you more than you loved him, and you wanted to let him down gently but felt really bad about it. Jesus, if I’d known you were just too chicken-shit to take a chance on him, I would’ve dumped you off with your mom.”

“That’s so mean,” she whispered.

Gage jabbed his index finger in her direction. “If you don’t run him down and beg his forgiveness, you don’t deserve him. And if you can’t make it work with a guy who loves you as much as Nick clearly loves you, you should just go the fuck home and buy a dozen cats and take up knitting, because you’re gonna die a bitter, lonely old woman.”

His words were the equivalent of a slap to the face. A reality bitch-slap. It occurred to her then that she’d never really given Nick a fair chance. In the back of her mind, she’d always assumed he’d leave her, just like Brad did. She’d lawyered him. She’d collected the little mistakes he’d made and kept them as evidence in her case against him. Had used them as an excuse to end things with him before he could hurt her.

“Oh my God,” she muttered. “I’m a dumbass!”

Gage nodded. “This is what I’m saying.”

As fast as her fingers would go, she punched Nick’s number into her phone. The call went right to voice mail. She leapt off the couch like it was on fire. “I have to find him! I need to talk to him now.”

“That could be a problem.”

She fought back a growl of pure frustration. “There’s no problem. I know what I need to do. I have to make this work.”

The look he shot her bordered on pity. “It’s a problem because Nick left an hour ago.”

Fuuuucccckkkkk.

Chapter Thirty-eight

All those romantic comedies that showed the beautiful, put-together heroine racing to the airport—wind-whipped, perfect hair flying behind her—to declare her undying love to the hero, and the two of them embracing dramatically in front of the gate before his plane departed were full of shit. Absolute shit.

The truth of a last-minute airport run was much less screen-worthy. First of all, finding out where Nick was had practically taken an act of God. As it turned out, the airlines and the Department of Homeland Security weren’t terribly inclined to give out the flight info of their air marshals. Grace assumed she was now on more than a few terrorist watch- lists thanks to all the inquiries she’d made.

In the end, it had only been with the help of the smarmy air marshal she’d met at the airport when she’d been detained that she’d been able to get Nick’s travel itinerary. She wasn’t sure if she should be thankful, or creeped-out that he remembered who she was (“the blonde with the rack”) after their one brief meeting. She supposed she should just be grateful he thought Nick needed to get laid enough to break all his employer’s rules and risk losing his job.

And as she raced from one end of the airport to the other, uncombed hair sticking to her sweaty forehead, missing one shoe (God only knew where she’d lost that), wearing Gage’s T-shirt (she’d puked Smirnoff Smoothie all over hers, apparently) and a pair of flannel pajama pants that said “sassy” across her ass, Grace imagined she was about as far removed from a romantic comedy heroine as a body could get. Not to mention the ginormous hit her bank account had taken when she had to book the last- minute, first-class ticket that would allow her a seat on Nick’s flight.

But none of that mattered, because she was here. It looked like everyone else had boarded, but she’d made it. She’d finally get a chance to tell Nick how she felt and beg for his forgiveness.

Gasping for breath, she bent over at the waist and handed her ticket to the pretty brunette gate attendant, who gave her a serious-looking side-eye. “Ma’am, are you alright?”

“Fine…” gasp “…stupid running…” gasp “…out of shape…” gasp “…Smirnoff Smoothies…” gasp “air marshal…” gasp “this plane…” “…love him” gasp “need to tell him…” gasp “…now.”

Her eyes widened. “Oh my God, did you do the romantic- comedy-last-minute-airport-run for Marshal McHottie?” She jumped up and down and clapped her hands together like a kid. “That’s so awesome!” Then she stopped, “Wait, are you the reason he’s so grumpy this morning?”

Grace grimaced. “Ugh. Probably.”

She raised a brow at her. “Girl, you’ve got your work cut out for you. But let’s get you on that plane, okay? And if it all works out, I’m going to expect an invite to your wedding. And if it doesn’t work out, you’re going to give me his phone number, because I’ve been trying to get it for three years, and that is just too much man to go to waste, am I right?”

Since Grace pretty much would’ve promised the other woman a kidney at that point to get on the plane, she readily agreed and quickly found herself tucked into her ridiculously overpriced first-class seat, waiting for takeoff, after which she’d be allowed to move back into business class, where Nick was seated.

Leaning her head back against her seat and squeezing her eyes shut, Grace did what she did every time she got on a plane.

She prayed.

Only this time, the prayer she sent heavenward didn’t have anything to do with her request not to plummet from the sky in a fireball of death.

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