Page 146 of Fake As Puck
“I know, but I have to go back. I have work. Clients. A lease.”
“Right. Of course.”
“But I’ll move in as soon as I can, okay?”
I nod. “I can’t wait.”
She falls asleep sometime after midnight, her breathing evening out against my chest, and I lie awake staring at the ceiling.
Tomorrow she goes back to LA. Tomorrow I go back to Seattle. Tomorrow we start figuring out how to be together when we’re apart.
But tonight, she’s here in my arms, and she loves me, and I love her, and that’s enough.
More than enough.
It’s everything.
I think about her speech, about the way she looked standing there in the garden with the microphone, telling me and everyone else exactly how she felt.
About the way she said she wanted to try.
About the way she said she wanted to love me for real.
I think about how I’m going to make this work. How I’m going to prove to her that this is worth the complication, worth the flights, worth rearranging our entire lives for.
And as I drift off to sleep with Liv in my arms, I’m already planning how I’m going to spend the rest of my life choosing her.
41
We wake up slow, limbs tangled together like we’ve been sleeping this way for years instead of one night.
“Morning,” West murmurs against my hair.
“Morning.”
“Sleep okay?”
“Better than okay.”
We lie there for a while, neither of us wanting to acknowledge that today is Sunday and I have a flight to catch and everything real-world is about to intrude on this perfect bubble we’ve created.
“What time is your flight?” he asks eventually.
“Two.”
“That’s in five hours. We should probably get breakfast.”
“Probably.”
But neither of us moves. We just stay wrapped up in each other, postponing the inevitable.
The hotel restaurant is busy with other wedding guests saying their goodbyes, and we find a quiet table by the window overlooking the vineyards.
“This is beautiful,” I say, looking out at the morning light on the grapevines.
“Yeah, it is.”
“Thank you for bringing me.”
