Page 151 of Ten Years and Then…
She turned around.
She saw him.
Her eyes lit up, and she smiled.
That smile.
And that was the most beautiful sight of all.
Nora, one second later
She didn’t run to him.
There was no need. They had all afternoon. All night. The rest of their lives.
She walked to him, slowly, deliberately, taking in every detail of him.
His hair, swept all over the place by the breeze outside.
His pretty eyes—God, they were even prettier than the last time she’d seen him, how was that even possible?
The delicate chain of the necklace, disappearing beneath his shirt.
His strong arms, beckoning her, reaching out to her, folding her in.
And his voice, whispering to her. “I knew you’d be here. I knew I’d find you.”
And then his lips on hers, and everything else faded away.
Daniel, five minutes later
The way he felt right now was worth waiting two years for.
She was in his arms, and hers were around him. Her eyes were wide open and bright, never breaking away from his for an instant.
This was everything he had imagined, and more. Forget two years—he’d have waited a million years for this.
“Nora,” he whispered. “I don’t want to wait anymore. I know we said ten years, but I don’t want to let you go again. I can’t.”
She was already smiling, but it got even brighter somehow. It was almost blinding.
“You don’t have to.” She pulled back from him, just a few inches, and took his hands in hers. She squeezed them. “I was just thinking—if you count from the last New Year’s Eve we were together, we’re already past ten years. So we can keep our promise right now.”
“Yes.” Absolutely yes. She was right. The fact that they were here together, in spite of the mix-ups and mistakes and miscommunications of the last three days, proved it.
This wasn’t fate or coincidence. Or the universe playing some game. It was them—both of them—choosing to find each other, no matter what.
“Do you want to go? There’s something I want to show you.” She pulled her hand away to check her watch. “Only two-thirty. They should be open for a while.” Daniel didn’t ask what or where—as long as it was with Nora, he didn’t care. “But I want to buy this on the way out.” She went to grab the book she’d been reading when he saw her.
Sonnets from the Portuguese and Other Poems. He didn’t recognize the title, but he knew the poet—Elizabeth Barrett Browning. They’d had to read her poems in tenth grade English, not that he remembered any of them now. Except maybe one. He was maybe fifty percent sure about it.
“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. Is that right?”
Nora clapped. “Exactly. Sonnet 43. But they’re all beautiful. We can read them together.”
Whatever she wanted to do together was fine with him.
Nora, fifteen minutes later
