Page 57 of Begin Again
He looks at me like he can’t believe I just said that. “Oh I don’t know, maybe it’s the fact that you reread it at least once a year. Or maybe the fact that I stole a copy from you once and you never asked for it back and the next week I saw you reading another copy.”
“I knew you stole it on purpose,” I say.
“You never asked for it back.” He shrugs. “So I kept it. It’s the copy I read from that night in New York.”
“Did you read all of it?” I ask. It's a dumb question because he is a reader. And he did start reading it out loud to me, something I’ve managed to forget though it wasn’t that long ago.
“I’ve read it twice,” Sam says, surprising me. “Though the first time, I didn’t read much of the book, I just read all of your highlights and notes. I wanted to know what you loved about it.”
I shake my head and laugh. “I was mad for about ten seconds when I realized you’d taken my annotated copy, but then I got to do it again and that was a lot of fun.”
“Happy to have helped,” he says.
My phone that's sitting on top of my cover-up lights up. I reach over to grab it.
“Noah and Tally and her family just landed in Los Angeles,” I tell him. “They are going to get here so late.”
“At least they have all day tomorrow to sleep, before the wedding on Friday.”
“True.”
“Noah’s expecting me to stay in your room again tonight, since they don’t land here until like two,” he says.
“That’s okay.”
“Hopefully the AC is fixed. If it’s not, I might sleep naked,” he says and I blush.
“Uh,” is all I manage to get out.
“I’m kidding. I just wanted to see how you’d react to that. You’re adorable when you blush.” He smiles and swims to whereI’m sitting by the edge of the hot tub. Close enough to touch, but he doesn’t reach out and close the gap between us. “And now I want to know what you’re thinking.”
Nope. No way am I going to tell him that for a split second, an image flashed into my head of all the things he and I could spend the night doing. We are married after all.
“I’m thinking that it’s time to go jump in the pool.” I stand and grab my clothes and shoes and phone before I head toward one of the pools. I drop my stuff on an empty chair and jump in without looking to see if he is behind me.
“Annie.” I hear his voice as I come up out of the water. He’s a foot away from me but not touching me.
He knows better than to touch me when I’m not expecting it.
“Sam,” I say as I wipe water out of my eyes.
There’s so much we need to talk about. About the future. About our marriage. But I move toward him in the water and his arms go around me. His hands on my hips. I wrap my arms around his neck.
“What are we doing?” he asks in a voice that sounds oddly strangled.
“Having fun?” I say it like a question.
He shakes his head and goes to pull away, but I pull him closer.
“Kiss me,” I whisper. He freezes. My mind is thrown back in time to the night before I left New York, when I asked him to kiss me, only this time, I’m different. He’s different, and this time, I’m truly ready to kiss my husband and all that comes with it. I don’t want to just have fun, I want the real deal. Even if the only person I’m ready to admit that to is myself.
“What?”
“Kiss me, Sam,” I say again and this time, he does.
I’m so much shorter than him, but in the pool it doesn't really matter. It’s nearly 9 p.m. and there aren’t many people here. I close my eyes and melt into the kiss.
His lips are soft and slow and warm. It reminds me of the kiss he gave me at the courthouse the day we got married. Until it doesn't.
