Page 133 of Be Your Anything
“I’m not sure I like how much enjoyment you’re getting out of the idea that I’d be publicly humiliated.”
“Look, mister,you’rethe one who showed up at Papa Louis’ wearing a barbershop quartet outfit, okay? I feel like I should be concerned that youlikethe public humiliation a little too much.”
We both laugh, and I pull her in close again.
“I love you,” I say into her ear. “So much.”
She pulls back and looks at me.
“I have five words for you, Lucas Pearson.”
My heart thuds, hoping to hear something I haven’t yet heard from her lips.
“I’m. In. Love. With. You.”
The smile on my face is astronomical. Bigger than anything. She kisses me again. It’s chaste but drawn-out, the two of us just enjoying the feel of our lips pressed together.
Then we turn and face the cameras and the crowd.
Together.
EPILOGUE
REMMY
They look happy. And really, both of them deserve it. A chance at findingthe one. If there is such a thing.
I’ve never really believed in the idea, though Lucas sure was as close to it as I think I’ll ever be able to get. He loved me when I didn’t just not love myself, but when I despised myself, when I believed I was anything but lovable.
We weren’t right together, though. He’s the kind of guy who needs a girl who loves him as much as he loves her, and I was never really capable of doing that.
I’m good for one thing, and that’s what’s between my legs. It was a stark realization that first time, when I realized that was all I was worth.
Lucas tried to convince me otherwise but…I don’t think he ever really knew the real me. Because if he did? He wouldn’t have tried to fix me so many times, wouldn’t have tried to make me love myself…to love him.
He would have left me alone, left me to the men who know how to treat a woman like me.
“Well if it isn’t the infamous Remmy Wallace.”
I spin in my chair, looking away from the crowd circling Lennon and Lucas on the beach in the distance, and take in the handsome male figure moving in my direction.
“Ben!” I shout, grinning and pushing away from my chair, flinging myself into his arms. “Wow. How are you?”
“I’m good,” he says, embracing me and then motioning for me to take my seat again. He follows, sitting across from me at my table, his back to the ocean.
I’m seated on the roof of his restaurant, Bennie’s at the Pier, which provides me a perfect vantage point to see the finish line of the pier-to-pier swim. Ben crossed my mind briefly when I showed up earlier, but it didn’t occur to me that I’d see him here, or that he’d remember me.
“It’s good to see you. I didn’t really get a chance to say hi and chat with you on the Fourth,” he says.
I nod. “It felt like you showed up and then suddenly you were gone.”
Ben smiles at me and lifts a shoulder. “I’d only planned to swing by for a little bit to catch the fireworks. I had some other things to do that day.”
He grins at the waitress who stops by and orders a water for himself. Then he looks back at me, his eyes assessing.
“How come you aren’t down there with the crowd?” he asks. “I thought I saw somewhere that Lucas was competing.”
I scrunch my nose. “We broke up.”
