Page 82 of Love Redesigned
I shook my head. “You big jerk.”
“It’s not all of it. There were two pieces they’d already—wait. Did you just call me a jerk?”
I laughed, tears coming to my eyes. “Why can’t I do something nice for you without you doing something back? How am I ever going to even the score if you keep loaning me money and furnishing my bedroom and buying back all of my fabric?”
He crouched down next to the box, fingering the satin that sat draped across my lap. “That’s just it. Sometimes it isn’t about keeping score. You don’t always have to be winning, Dani. Sometimes life really is just about being nice to people. About doing what you want, instead of what makes you first.”
The doorbell rang again and we both looked up. “That probablyisPaige,” I said.
Isaac stood.
As I stood and put the fabric back in the box, shifting it so it sat to the side of the entryway, it felt as though a piece of something I’d long been missing clicked into place in my heart.
I didn’t need New York.
I didn’t need towinthe fashion industry.
I really could just do something because it made me happy.
I paced from the window to the door, then back again inside my tiny hotel room on Islamorada. We were only five minutes away from the LeFranc summer estate which made everything feel real in a way it hadn’t up to that point. We wereinFlorida. Committed. The thought made me jittery and uncomfortable. On what had to have been my five hundredth pass around the room, I gave up and grabbed my phone, my fingers hovering over Alex’s name on my screen.
I can’t sleep,I finally texted.
Alex replied immediately.Me neither.
TV?
It took a full minute for his response to come through.Come on over.
I grabbed my hoodie, tossing it on over my pajamas, and slipped on my flip-flops, trying not to think about why it had taken him so long to respond.
Alex was waiting at his open hotel-room door when I reached him. He backed into the room and held the door open for me, closing it once I was inside.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hi.”
Nervous energy had been pulsing through me all night as I’d stressed and worried about Sasha’s wedding, butthisnervous energy felt entirely different. Heat radiated off Alex’s body and I itched to step closer, to breathe him in, to feel his solid warmth under my hands. I was tired of being angry. Tired of feeling hurt. Tired of being afraid and nervous and uncertain. But there was nothing uncertain about the man standing in front of me.
“Do you want—”
I lunged across the small space between us and cut his words off with a kiss.
He stepped back, obviously startled, but steadied himself quickly without breaking the kiss and wrapped his arms around my back. I took hold of his t-shirt, bunching it in my fists as I pulled him even closer. I tilted my head to the side and deepened the kiss, eliciting a whimpering moan from Alex that told me just how much he didn’t mind my forwardness. My hands moved up to his face then slid into his hair.
There were no guarantees concerning the next forty-eight hours of my life. Things could go perfectly well, or they could completely explode in my face. Either outcome could have a significant impact on my future.
But none of that mattered. Not with Alex in front of me, not with his hands on my skin, his lips tracing kisses down the side of my neck.
“Dani, what are we doing?” he whispered.
I arched my neck, leaning it back toward his lips. “I don’t know but I think we’re really good at it.”
He planted a kiss on the curve of my jaw, right below my ear just as a knock sounded on the door behind us.
We both froze, Alex’s hands tightening around my arms.
“Alex? You still up?” Isaac said through the door. “I’m going downstairs for a quick drink. You want to come?”
