Page 149 of Summertime Friends

“You are?”

“I am,” I say confidently.

We move to his living room. He sits down and pulls me onto his lap. I turn to straddle him. An intimate position we’ve been in countless times, but this time, I only want to see him. Really look at him while I finally admit to him how I feel.

“This. Us. Everything is on me. I’ve been in my head, and I’m sorry. I never meant to hurt you by letting everything get in the way—the distance, my parent’s divorce, Natalie, my anxiety. Whenever I thought I loved you, I allowed these excuses to get the best of me. It took me a while to learn that I can love you despite them and because of them. In the end, whatever excuse, trigger, or anything else that comes our way doesn’t matter to me anymore as long as I get to choose you. And I do. I choose you. I’m not perfect.I’m still figuring it out, but my love for you is so loud that it quiets the insecurities.”

I lean forward to place a gentle kiss on his lips. Liam is quiet, allowing me to own the moment, own my feelings, and finally have the bravery to take what I want.

“I realize now that it’s been you and me all along,” I continue. “Wherever I’ve been. Whoever I’ve been with. Whoever I am. Memories of us are memorized in my mind. Time and time again, they’d replay the cruelest or sweetest moments. Each time, reminding me of everything we could be. My mind somehow always knew, using those memories as barriers to make sure I never moved on. There were days I was desperate to forget, to let you go and be free. But there were days that I wished I was brave enough to do whatever it would take to get back to you.”

“You’re brave enough now.” Liam brushes his knuckle against my cheek. I close my eyes, longing for his hand to stay there forever.

“Tell me it’s not too late. Please.” My please comes out broken. A crack that reveals the desperation behind it because I wouldn’t blame him if it were. “Please,” I beg again when he doesn’t answer.

Liam laughs. Laughing?

“You’re laughing? I’m serious right now.”

“States, if it were too late, then that kiss or how much I want to undress you right now would be wrong, aye?”

He’s still laughing, and it vibrates through my entire body. He brings his hands to either side of my face, holding my face mere inches away from his. We’re so close that I can feel his breath and smell the same cologne from that night in Paris.

“It’ll never be too late for us. There’s no place you or I could go or people we could become where we wouldn’t find our way back to each other. It’s always been us, and it will always be us,” Liam says with the purest sincerity I’ve ever experienced.

It’s not too late. Everything that happened is in the past. Scratch that. It’s not just in the past. It is our present. A chapter we finished that led us to the one we are writing now.

There seems to be nothing left to say but “I love you, Liam Hayes.”

“I love you too, Emerson Clarke.”

He reaches out for me and pulls me into his chest. His warm embrace and the smell of him feel like home. It is exactly where I’m supposed to be—with him and in love with him.

Natalie was right. We were meant to find our way back to each other.

EPILOGUE

Liam

Six Months Later

I love the summer, but springtime in London is quite exceptional. Mild weather but full of color–blooming magnolia trees, the greenest grass, and parks full of daffodils. Full of Emerson. Maybe that’s why this has been my favorite season.

Emerson moved to London officially in January.

She quit her job, deciding to bet on herself as a photographer full-time. She’ll always have a job with Hayes Hotels and any future location we open, but since September, her photos have blown up. The photos she took at our opening were featured in Entrepreneur, GQ, and US Weekly—the list is long. She’s on a waiting list; the demand for her is that high—every sort of gig and all over the world.

I’d like to take credit—in an interview, they couldn’t get me to shut up about her. Luckily, they ran all of it—but this is all Emerson. Remarkable talent. Remarkable girl.

My phone buzzes in my hand.

Chloe: Did you do it?

Callum: Seriously. Chloe is becoming a pain in my ass.

Chloe: Shut up. I am not.

George: She is. We are waiting.

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