Page 60 of The Likelihood Of You

He doesn’t say anything; he just rolls his eyes at me because he knows he’s brought this on himself. I take the camera all too giddily from his hands, and we swap places. “Ready?” I asked, positioning the camera just right.

He places a hand on his hip and mimics the bump I did with mine. “I love it; give me more,” I say. His other hand lifts into a peace sign, and his tongue peeks out from his mouth. I don’t waste any time taking the picture. It’s perfect.

“Got it.” He relaxes and walks back toward me, smug smile well and truly gone.

We walk closer towards Times Square while finishing our pretzels, but avoid the bigger crowds. It’s so huge I can only take in a little bit at a time. The billboards, the lights, even the car horns; it’s overwhelming in the best way. I turn to make sure Jacob is still beside me, and he is, and I smile.

Tonight has been magical. There's no doubt in my mind this whole night will be one of the most important ones I’ll have in my life. One I'll want to slip into the locket around my neck. One I'll think about when I'm like NannaDorothy.

It’s been the wrap party for overcoming everything that brought me here in the first place. I wanted to remember every detail, every second. Every feeling.

I felt lucky, which was odd. For most of my life, if you would have asked me to describe myself in three words; cursed would have taken every spot. In my eyes, I was at the top of the universe’s hit list. I grew up big, lost my parents at fifteen, had my dreams unknowingly snatched from me, got cheated on, and was betrayed by the one girl I never suspected would ever want to hurt me.

All the things that had the potential to poison my life happened, cursing me with the trauma that came as a package deal. And somehow, I always seemed to circle back to myself when I was looking for someone to blame.

“Hey, you okay?” Jacob’s voice echoed in the distance, but my thoughts were the only sound breaking through.

But what if…everything happened exactly the way it was supposed to? My life played out in the way it was written, by the stars who knew me before I so much as let out my first cry into the world. What if, right now, my feet were planted in the coordinates they were always meant to be in?

Perhaps I never saw it at the time, but all those moments, the ones that shaped me, were charting their course for a reason. If I’d never watched those awful moments play out like they did, would I be here now?

Would I be surrounded by all this beautiful chaos? Would I call this city my home? Would I have just spent the night with the man I love?

Wait,what?

I stop in my tracks, becoming one with the pavement. “I love you.” My words come out quiet, but enough for Jacob to know I’ve said something.

“Flo?”

I turn to face him. He looks so concerned; his eyes glossed over with worry. I was far from hurt, or anything that would make him feel like that. I was high on the realisation that I was about to whisper the three words I’d never thought would grace my lips again for a long time.

“I love you.”

His face went still. Only for a second, but it felt like a lifetime. His pause sets off the panic alarms in my body. Would this be another unlucky moment I’d carry with me on my back? I was going to say it was, until a smile, brighter than the lights surrounding us, beamed on his face.

“You know, I think saying I love you too won’t be enough for you to understand how much you mean to me, Flo” His head fell forward. “But I love you too.”

Those words felt like honey, slicking my ears with their sweetness. Our eyes locked for the longest time, letting our words settle into each other’s skin. His hands lifted from his sides, each one cupping a side of my face.

As far as I was concerned, home for me was no longer across the Atlantic ocean; it was looking down at me with eyes I loved just as much as the man they belonged to.

“Can I kiss you now?”

I nodded, I think. I can't quite be sure. But before I could question it, I rose on the tips of my shoes, edging closer and closer towards him, until his lips came down on mine with a gentlecaress. I forgot how smooth his lips were, how nicely they fit between mine. They cushioned mine as they parted, protecting them. When they did, his tongue mingled with mine with eagerness and grace. One of his hands left my face and snaked around the back of my head, scrunching my curls lightly, but enough to feel his power. I felt him loosen his grip, his index finger sneaking under my cardigan and trailing the middle of my spine, before placing his palm flat against the small of my back and pulling me closer.

We were surrounded by millions, but in this moment, it was only us who existed here.

We savoured every curve of each other’s lips, like this moment could be stolen from us at any point. I felt him take his hand away from my back and move it down by his side. At the same time, his lips left mine. The air was still electric around us, fueling the fearlessness that had captured me.

A soft grin landed on his mouth, before I felt him grab my hand. “Let’s go.”

Chapter twenty-two

Florence

Inever wanted this night to end.

The whole car ride back to Jacobs was a blur; a clumsy montage of his hand on my thigh and my hand on the back of his neck, streetlights illuminating the backseats for a fleeting moment, our eyes dancing and hearts pounding.

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