Page 43 of Reconnected Hearts
Andbeautiful.
“Lucy!” I abruptly end the call.
Her long brown curls are down and framing her face, painting her in a light of purity. The sage green dress she’s wearing flows down and pools at her knees. She’s looking at me, and I finally feel seen again.
I’m not this lucky. I haveneverbeen this lucky. There’s absolutely no chance Lucy came back for me. I wanted it. I wanted it so, so badly. But when have I ever gotten what I want?
“I’m so sorry I left,” she tells me, running up and throwing her arms around me in one quick motion. I feel her hands brushing against the sensitive skin of my neck as her fingers weave into my hair, the very same way they did before.
It’s her. It’s really Lucy.
“I didn’t really want to,” she says quickly. “It’s just that I thought for sure that I was doing the right thing, and now I’m not even sure what the right thing is, but I know that I don’t want to go back to being strangers. Even if we’re just acquaintances who only like each other’s posts every three months on social media, that’s fine. I just want you in my life. I don’t?—”
“You’re cute when you ramble.” I pull away from her with a beaming grin and tuck a stray strand of hair behind her ear.
“Oh, shut up.” She moves forward and presses her lips to mine, not hungrily nor lustfully, but sweetly. There’s no fight for dominance or even any semblance of demanded control. Her lips linger just long enough on mine to make my heart do a backflip. When she pulls away, I can still taste the tropical coconut of her lip balm lingering on my skin. I think that even if I smelled it every day for the rest of my life, I’d never get sick of that scent.
“So,” she begins breathlessly, her cheeks dangerously close to being pink, “I have a wedding to go to. Wanna be my date?”
I can’t help but burst out laughing. I take her face in my hands and run my thumbs along the warm silk of her cheeks, shaking my head at her silly smile.
“I thought you’d never ask.”
She rests her hands over mine and gently takes hold of them. We begin to walk in tandem down the sidewalk, just a couple of overdressed idiots consumed by schoolchildren crushes.
“So, how’d the interview go?” Lucy asks me as we walk.
“Terrible. I got the job.”
Lucy hums in a way that seems partly sympathetic and partly amused. I let it slide, though. It’s her God-given right to make fun of me anytime she pleases. “Well, congratulations and apologies. What are you gonna do about it?”
I shrug easily. “I don’t know, and I don’t care. A wise woman once told me to do what my heart tells me. I just gotta figure out what in the hell my heart is saying because I don’t think it’s speaking English.”
Lucy giggles and playfully shoves my arm. “Idiot.”
I smile and shove right back. “Nerd.”
EPILOGUE
LUCY
“Hey, Noah.”
I set my bag down on the kitchen table before walking up behind Noah. He’s stirring dinner cooking on the stove. I wrap my arms around him and press a kiss to the back of his neck.
“Hey, babe.” He cranes his neck back to kiss my cheek. “How was work?”
I shrug and absentmindedly ruffle his hair before stepping away and peeling off my coat. “It was uneventful. We start that new project tomorrow, though. Nora’s flying in in the morning for the intro.”
“Oh, great! I haven’t seen her in ages.”
“Don’t lie, Noah. I know you don’t like her,” I inform him matter-of-factly, to which he swivels around with a sassy hand on his hip that goes just swell with his “Trophy Wife”apron.
“I like her just fine. It’s her incessant need to interrogate me that I’m not so fond of.”
I know the feeling.
“You know how Nora is. She doesn’t mean anything by it.”
