Page 127 of Our Hearts Knew Better

“Okay, be safe,” I say for what is probably literally the hundredth time.

“You be safe,” she says back as I’m closing my laptop. “I’m still too young to be an aunt.”

I crack up at that, my laptop almost falling from my hand as I set it aside on the bed.

“Babies,” she adds. “Still yucky.”

“Yucky,” I repeat. “Well, I promise. No babies. I’m still too young to be a mom.”

Paper crinkles over the line, then she crunches in my ear, saying through her mouthful, “Okay, I’ll see you soon. Love you.”

“Love you too,” I tell her through my lingering smile, then end the call, letting my phone fall to the bed.

My smile widens and I sigh, glancing around the fire tower. My new home. With Levi.

My new home with Levi!

He once told me to find happiness and live there. This is it. This was always it.

This is my life. I am the main character and this is my romance.

This is my happily ever after.

My author, whoever she may be, even let me have my dad. Who lately has been joining some of my cooking sessions with Isolde.

He’s still trying so I am too.

There’s a new book on the small table by the bed. I’m about halfway through the story, enjoying my time as I did when I was younger, changing the narrative. Living in fictional worlds doesn’t have to mean I hate living in the real one. I can live and love in both.

Theclickof the door sounds and Levi pops his grinning face through the crack, then a small bouquet slides in underneath that grin, flowers I recognize as pink camellias.

“My hero,” I tease as he steps in and shuts the door.

He hurries over to me as he teases back, “They’re just flowers.”

I chuckle into his kiss, our hands brushing as he gives me the flowers. “Is this becoming a tradition now?” I ask as I sniff in their fake aroma, earning me another dimple pop from my boyfriend. “Did you thank your mom for me?” I ask next as I set the bouquet on the table.

“No,” Levi says as he now hands me the real flower that makes my eyes sting every time I see it. “I picked them out.”

I lick the nectar with a pause and narrowing brows, then add the honeysuckle to the table. “Even then?” I say, my voice a whisper.

“Even then.” Levi studies my opened mouth as his scrunches. “You never found out what they mean,” he assumes, then sighslike he’s already letting it go, reaching out and giving a gentle tug to one of my curls.

I tilt my hair out of his hold to get his focus back on my narrowed gaze, my tone lighthearted as I attempt to argue. “I didn’t know I was supposed to. I thought they were from your mom.”

“They symbolize longing,” he murmurs, the words thick in his throat, his eyes so soft as they dance between mine, that sting again as I register the length he went to in sending me a message. That I failed to receive. Looking up meanings of flowers himself.

I lean closer to him, my heart racing to be aligned with his, my hand a firm dip in the bed, my arm stiff-straight to make that happen as I say pointedly, “You were trying to tell me something without telling me something. That’s so you,” I tease.

He cups my face, that soft look still holding to his eyes as he holds me, all steady intention. “I love you.” He says the three words as exhales and I breathe them into my still racing heart, Levi’s love for me calming the beats as my cheeks flame against his palms.

His eyes drop to my parted lips at my momentarily tied tongue, then glide back up, a flutter in his lids, a spark and a returned tease too. “How’s that for telling you something?”

I circle both his wrists, my fingers squeezing and feeling his pounding pulse. “I love you too,” I say, and he sighs, as if he doubted, with such a heavy relief, I laugh.

Then he holds my gaze with a smile that builds so slowly, so lovingly, and with such an underlying amusement, my next words come out from that. “But now I’m mad at you all over again.”

He leans in, shifting one hand to my neck and the other through my hair to tilt my head as he strokes his lips along my jaw. “Are you really, though?”

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