Page 117 of Swept Away

“Not really,” she whispers, then, “Maybe. Sometimes.”

“I wish you’d thought better of me.”

“But I didn’t know you, that’s what I told myself,” she says, glancing up for one pained moment. Her eyes are full of tears. “And I knew Penny inside out. At least, I thought I did. Whereas I didn’t know who you were in the real world.”

I can’t stand it any longer—I pull her in to my chest.

“You know me,” I say, as she burrows her head into me, the way she has a hundred times before. I close my arms around her. “You think this world’s more real? Look at us, we’re in a place where people sit around pretending to have breakfast together at four in the afternoon, with a whole audience watching them drink tea. The fruit on that table isn’t real. It’s polished plastic. I have so much makeup on I can’t really raise my eyebrows, Lexi.”

I feel her smile as her shoulders lift on a quick gulp for breath.

“Was thereanythingmore real than the life we had on thewater?” I ask her, pulling back slightly. “It was—it was where I was most…” I close my eyes, frustrated with myself.

“It’s OK,” she whispers into my jacket. “It’s where I was most myself. Is that what you mean?”

“Yeah. Exactly. And you cutting me out the way you did…It hurt so much because you knew me. Maybe better than anyone ever has. Ifyoufelt like you never wanted to see me again, then…”

“I know,” she says, beginning to cry. “I hurt you. I wanted to hurt you. I thoughtyou’dhurt the only person in the world who I love the way I love you.”

I hold her so tightly I can feel her catching her breath. What I say next, it matters: I have to get it right, and I force myself to wait until the words arrange themselves the way I want them.

“If I’d known Mae was mine, she would have known every day that her dad was there for her. I would never have hurt her, and I never want to hurt her, Lexi. But I do want to know her. And I realize you may not want that. Penny may not want that. And that’s going to be complicated.”

“Complicated,” she whispers into my chest. “We’ve not reallydonecomplicated, have we?”

“I mean, I don’t think staying alive on the water was uncomplicated…”

“It was difficult,” she says, finally lifting her face to mine. “But it wasn’t complicated. We knew what we had to do.”

I tilt my head, brushing her hair back from her face. “OK,” I say, smiling down at her. “Well, we’re good at difficult.”

“We are good at difficult.”

“Reckon it’s worth giving complicated a go, too?”

“We’ve had a month off from peril and trauma,” Lexi says. “We do probably need a new challenge.”

I link my hands at the small of her back and look down into herface. She’s more relaxed now, a smile lingering in the corners of her eyes. For a split second I remember how it felt to gaze at her like this on the lifeboat deck, just moments after we were rescued. How absolutely floored I was to get to hold her in my arms when I thought I never would again. It makes me want to keep living like that, keep feeling like that—not the terror but the gratitude. The intensity of this love. I don’t want to lose it, not even for a moment.

“I love you,” I whisper. “And I don’t care how complicated things get. I’m not letting you go.”

She smiles. “It doesn’t end for us,” she whispers back. “Remember? Not ever.”

She kisses me, standing on tiptoe to bridge the space between us. I tighten my arms around her and close my eyes as she deepens the kiss, running her hands up my back like she wants me even closer. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I register the quiet click of the fire-exit door behind us, but I’m too lost in her to care.

“Oh, now, hey, would you look at that!” Yusuf says.

We break apart and turn to see him and a scuttling, bent-kneed cameraman coming toward us.

“I think we’ve walked into the middle of our happily ever after,” Yusuf says, beaming. “Isn’t that just perfect!”

Lexi

A string quartetis playing their own version of Taylor Swift’s “Sweet Nothing.” There are white balloons hanging from the rafters, interspersed with bright blue ones—the color reminds me of a summer sky. And there are giant pictures of me and Zeke hanging like tapestries from the walls.

“So it’s not been a totally seamless transition from memorial to welcome home party,” Zeke’s sister says briskly, casting an eye over the main event space of Lemmington Hall. “And some of these lilies were repurposed from the funeral wreaths we couldn’t get a refund on. But I think it’s worked out pretty well, considering.”

“Looks great to me. I like a lily. Where’s Jeremy gone?” I ask.

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