Page 95 of The Suitcase Swap
‘That’s not the best part,’ Sophie said.
Mike pulled back, confused. ‘It’s not?’
She shook her head. ‘No, the best part is that on Friday, Edie has invited us all to dinner, and your family will be there, and my family will be there, and then all of my absolutely favourite people will be in one place.That’sthe best part.’
‘You’re right,’ Mike said. ‘My mistake.’ He kissed her then, soft and sweet. ‘You know what the best part is right now?’
‘No.’
‘It’s that we’re in the air and you didn’t notice,’ Mike said. ‘It’s that we get to spend the rest of this flight talking about all the good things in our lives right now, and even though it’s a long flight, we’ll still have things left over when we step offthis plane. Our happiness will be so apparent and disgusting that people will want to throw things at us.’
Sophie tilted her head to the side. ‘How long do you think it would take us to list all the good things?’
Mike frowned, thinking. ‘Forever, probably.’
‘That’s a long time.’
‘The thing is,’ Mike said, ‘is that we’ll keep making new ones as we go, so the list is sort of regenerative.’
‘We’ll probably have a lot of bad things as well,’ Sophie said. ‘Just because that’s how life works.’
‘We don’t need to list those, though.’
‘We don’t?’
‘Why would we want to waste our time on the bad things? They’ll happen, we’ll deal with them and move on.’ Mike shook his head. ‘We only have this one life, and I don’t intend to waste it. I’ve already spent too many years closed off.’
Sophie thought about that as she watched him. She didn’t think she’d ever get tired of his face – the blue-green of his eyes, the curve of his lip. ‘Do you count those years as wasted, then?’
‘No,’ Mike said. ‘Not any more. Because now I know I was waiting for you.’
She snuggled into him and Mike put an arm around her, tugging her close as they tried their best to get comfortable on the plane.
‘You know,’ Sophie said after a minute, ‘I think I’m going to have to slightly revise my position on planes.’
Mike peered down at her. ‘Are you feeling well? Have you been replaced by some sort of pod person?’ He held up two fingers. ‘How many fingers am I holding up?’
She poked one of his ticklish spots. ‘I wassayingthat if I hadn’t got on that first, horrible flight to New York, none of this would ever have happened. I never would have met you. I wouldn’t have my book deal. My kids might not be movinghome. None of it would have happened without that first plane trip.’
‘I don’t think that’s entirely true,’ Mike said.
‘You don’t?’
‘I think the popularity of your blog would have brought you to someone’s attention at some point, and with Marisa not having much family besides us, the odds were high that they would end up moving closer to you at some point.’
Sophie scrunched up her face. ‘But what about us?’
Mike didn’t hesitate. ‘We would have found each other.’
Sophie was surprised at how confidently he said that. ‘You think so?’
‘I don’t believe much in fate,’ Mike said, ‘but I do believe that some things are inevitable, and for me, you, Sophie Tremblay, areinevitable.’
She laughed. ‘I thought I was a choice?’
He looked at her, his expression perplexed. ‘It’s not really a choice when it’s always the same answer. The answer is always you.’ He shrugged. ‘In light of that, what choice is there?’
Sophie wasn’t sure how to respond to that except to give him another kiss, tell him she loved him, and to spend the rest of the flight discussing their inevitable future.
Together. Always together.
