Page 102 of Second Dance
“I say yes,” I said.
The summer air shimmered around us, hot and sweet and full of promise. He slipped the ring onto my finger and kissed me as fireworks burst somewhere in the distance. Had he arranged that too?
When I asked him, breathless and laughing, he shook his head.
“I wish I could take credit,” he murmured against my lips, and I laughed again, dizzy with joy.
We stood at the railing, his arms wrapped around me from behind, watching the city blaze with light.
“Do the kids know?” I asked. “Did they help you with all of this?”
“Nope, this was all me. But they do know. I asked Grace for her permission.” His grin was guilty and boyish and so familiar it made my heart ache. Then, his expression changed and tears gathered at the corners of his eyes. “She asked if I would adopt her. Be her dad.”
That made me cry all over again. “She did?”
“I already talked to Ben about it. He’ll make it happen. After we marry.”
“You really want to? Not just to please her?”
“First of all, pleasing her would be a good enough reason. But yes, I really want to. I about lost it when she asked, so wistful and vulnerable. She said she’d wished for a dad just like me.”
“Oh, Grace. She’s too much.” But pride and love bloomed in my chest for my darling girl.
“We owe all of this to her, you know.”
I grinned through my tears. “She’ll never let us forget it, either.”
The three children were probably waiting back home, sitting by their phones, desperate for news. Our family. Messy and complicated. Imperfect perhaps. But, to me, they were everything I could’ve wished for.
“Let’s call them,” I said. “They’ll be dying to hear the details.”
“In a minute.” Alex kissed me again, slow and deep, as Manhattan glittered around us. “I want to remember this. Just us. Just for a minute more.”
Fourteen years ago, we’d said goodbye in this city, both of us too young to fight for what we had. But we weren’t those kids anymore. We’d lived entire lives, loved other people, raised children, buried dreams, and built new ones.
And still, somehow, we’d found our way back.
Alex pulled me closer, and I rested my head against his chest, listening to his heartbeat mix with the sounds of the city below. Above us, the summer sky deepened to indigo.
The boy and girl who’d fallen in love one summer were gone, but the man and woman who remained had found something even better—a love worth waiting for.
Love had found its way home. And it turns out—home is a person.
21
ALEX
Five Souls
for Alex and Gillian
by Seraphina Sinclair
Once, when we were young
and bursting with ambition,
I felt your eyes land upon me?—
