Page 86 of Sleeping with Her Enemy (49th Floor 2)

“Hold out your hand!” Gary shouted. “Catch it!”

“Ack!” The ball was indeed coming right at her, careering down a metal chute. Instinctively, she cupped her hands, and the ball landed right in her lap, in time with whoops of delight from Gary.

“That was amazing!” It truly had been. She looked around to find Gary, but he was gone. She was alone in the yard.

“Gary?” As she stood, she noticed that the ball she was holding, which was a little round Nerf ball of some sort, had writing on it. “Amy,” was lettered on the side in big black block letters. Amazed, she turned it around. “Open me,” the other side said. There was a seam around the equator of the ball. It was covered with tape, as if someone had split the ball in half and then put it back together.

When another look around the yard confirmed she was alone, she shrugged and started peeling back the tape. With a little effort, the two halves of the ball separated. It had been hollowed out, and inside was a small plastic Tupperware container. She popped open the lid to find…

“A strawberry?” It was a perfect specimen of its type, red and ripe with an emerald green stem. There was also a tiny note tucked inside the box.

Part two is in the boat.

Part two is in the boat? Was she meant to walk back to the ferry dock? Because there was no boat in sight. Bewildered, she spun slowly in a circle.

Her gaze caught on the base of the machine, the big thing that had been covered but partially revealed by the reaction. She grabbed hold of the tarp and pulled it the rest of the way off to reveal a kayak.

It was a two-seater. Tears gathered in her eyes as understanding dawned slowly. She was starting to see that this had all been for her, as impossible as it seemed. With shaking hands, she reached into the front seat and retrieved a small box perched there.

Then she gasped. Then she laughed. Then she cried. Then she did everything all at once. Because it was Strawberry Shortcake perfume. The kind she’d loved as a kid.

“So I was thinking.”

“Ahh!” She was full on crying now, but she didn’t care because there he was, casually leaning against the fence that separated the two yards.

“No matter what else happens, you can’t go the rest of your life smelling the wrong way.”

…

When Amy Morrison flew into his arms, Dax’s fears evaporated like a mist of strawberry perfume.

“I’m sorry!” she said through her tears.

“Hey, hey, don’t cry.” He pulled back enough to frame her face with his hands and use his thumbs to brush her tears away. “That’s my line.”

She closed her eyes for a moment and tilted her head, as if savoring his touch. “It needs to be said, though,” she whispered when she opened them. But she was smiling now, so that was progress. “I should never have let you go this morning.”

“I should never have left. I should have just parked myself there in that sea of rich white-wearing motherfuckers and refused to leave until I’d said my piece.”

She brought her hands up to cover his, which were still resting on her face.

He took a deep breath. It was T-in-the-road time. “Amy, I love you.”

“I love you, too.” Hearing those words was like setting down an enormous boulder he hadn’t realized he’d been carrying. “I think maybe you misunderstood what I was saying,” she said. “I was never going to back to Mason. I was just so…overwhelmed. But I should have told you how I felt ages ago.”

“I should have told you. I should have seen what was right in front of my face.”

“I know why I didn’t,” she said. “Why didn’t you?”

“You were always talking about how you weren’t looking for a relationship.” He paused. He could leave it there, and she would never know. “But also…” God, this was hard.

“Allison?” she said softly.

She understood without him having to say it. “Yeah. I was scared. Hell, I am scared. But I have a feeling you’re going to be worth it.” He cleared his throat. “Now your turn.”

She screwed up her nose and laughed. “I was trying to convince myself about this whole casual sex thing, I think! I mean, who meets the love of her life the day she gets left at the altar?”

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