Page 69 of Keeping It Professional

“You have five minutes,” I said, and my skin pricked with chills. If I couldn’t forgive him, we were over, done. All hope of recovery up in smoke.

“I talked to my dad,” said Miles. “It had been… years. So long I can’t even tell you how many.” He looked down at his feet, then to the sky. “All this time, I’d been thinking he blamed me for Nick. Him and Mom both, but that wasn’t it. It was me the whole time, pulling away. Shutting myself off from them. Refusing to talk. I thought if I did, they’d say what I thought, that it was my fault. That I killed Nick.”

My heart did a somersault. “You thought youkilledhim?”

“Because I was with him. I didn’t know how to help. And the more I blamed myself, the more I—I…” He pressed his hands to his face. Raked them through his wet hair. “I couldn’t let anyone love me, or let them get close. Whenever I did, it felt… wrong. Like something I had that Nick never would — like I stole it from him when I survived. I never thought I deserved you, and maybe I don’t, but I wish I could try to. Try to for real. If you’d let me, I swear I’d hold nothing back. I’d be all in, and I know you might not believe me. I know I’ve been?—”

“Miles.”

“—distant. Closed-off. I’ve been such a coward, and if I could go back?—”

“Miles.”

“If I could start it all over from our first day, and not be a jerk to you or push you away, you have noideahow different it’d be. I’d be the good partner you always deserved. I’d be honest and open, and?—”

“Miles. Shut up.”

He shut up for a second, then grabbed both my hands. “No. No, please, Sophie. I have to say this. I was numb when I met you. Barely living at all. I was scared to feel anything, but with you, now, I’m not. I want to feel everything, if you’d only?—”

He wasn’t going to stop talking, I guessed maybe ever. But I’d already heard all I needed to hear. So I grabbed him by his collar and jerked him down hard, and shut his mouth with a deep, breathless kiss. I could feel his pulse racing, his lips hot on mine, the roughness of his palm on the back of my neck. It was like coming home, that first step in the door, everything still familiar after a long time away. Everything welcoming, everything mine. He was still mine. Still the Miles I loved.

“I’m sorry,” I said, when I pulled away.

“Sorry for what?”

“For all you went through. For how scared you were. I couldn’t see it.”

“I couldn’t, either.” He gasped a shaky laugh. “It took a whole intervention, my best friend in my face. I was an ass to him, too, but he somehow saw through me. Somehow got through to me and made me see…” Miles took my hands again and squeezed them so hard the bones creaked. “I don’t expect you to forgive what I did all at once. But if I asked you out again, like a trial date?—”

“I’m starving right now.”

“So, you want to go eat?”

“The sooner the better.” I stole one more kiss. “And, Miles?”

His smile went crooked. “I know. Last chance, right?”

I laughed. “Oh, you’ll screw up again. And so will I. I’m sure we’ll both need a hundred more chances. But what I wanted to say was, I love you too.”

He spun me into his arms and we kissed in the rain, and all I could think was how brave he was — how brave to be honest, to deal with his past. To come to me now with his heart on his sleeve. I couldn’t wait for our second first date, and our next date after that, and all we’d become.

EPILOGUE

ONE YEAR LATER: MILES

Itransferred back to my old post six weeks after the flood, to Clive’s relief and Jones’s chagrin. He’d been riding with Sophie since I’d been away, and he wasn’t thrilled about giving her up. On that, I could sympathize. It sucked losing Sophie. And it was beautiful, having her back.

She was right: we fought sometimes as I won back her trust. I had days where my fears surged up, and my lifelong guilt. She had days where she saw that and slammed up her walls. But we worked through it. We talked, sometimes yelled. We went on long walks where we said nothing at all, and let the wind and the rain sweep our anger away. Most nights, we ended up back at her place, sprawled out together on her ratty couch.

Weeks passed, then months, and our fights tapered off. I bought her a new couch — well, bought it for us. She surprised me with a dinner she’d cooked from scratch. Summer came, and together, we painted her place. Then it was fall, and we raked the leaves from our yards. We argued about whether fall had a smell, but in the fun way that led to sex.

Then it was winter, and it didn’t feel real. A year since our first real date — how could that be? The months had flashed by like time in a dream. Like a movie montage, there and gone in a flash. Now we were here again, back at the start, parked in our ambulance, warming up between calls. Sophie was hunched over her coffee, letting the fading steam warm her face.

“Hey, Sophie?”

“Mm?”

I felt in my pocket. The box was still there. Now wasn’t the time for it, but soon. Very soon.

---