He's barely let go of my hand since we left the museum, either. He seems perfectly content to hold onto me until I make the choice to break the connection. And I really don't think I want to.
"Next stop is ours," he murmurs and places a gentle kiss on my temple. I nod and silently follow his lead, making sure we have all of our things before disembarking.
The platform is busier than when we left, full of people talking and hustling their way to wherever they need to go. But it all falls away when I look at him. Dustin. My Dusty. A hint of another chance at life.
"Hey, I wanna show you something." He smiles at me as we ascend the steps into the chilly wind.
"Yeah?"
"Yeah, it's on my laptop." He shivers against the cold. "Remember how you asked if my date survey was on the company server?"
I perk up at the idea of a secret. "Yeeeeeah?"
"And I told you it's not?"
"Yeah?" I reply, getting a little more exasperated.
"Do you want me to show you how I did that?" He grins.
"Yes!" I let go of his hand and start jogging toward his building. "C'mon, keep up! What's all that protein breakfast for, huh?"
Giggling as we run, we make it back to the lobby of his fancy building out of breath and red-faced. The doorman looks at us in surprise before plastering his professional, customer-service smile back on. "Did we have an exciting day?"
"Oh, it's about to get better," I chuckle and wink at the man. His smile briefly falters as a light blush descends upon his cheeks.
"Well, please enjoy yourdelightof an afternoon." He punches the elevator call button for us and resumes his post by the door.
"Oh my god," I breathe. "He totally thinks we're about to have sex."
"Wha—oh.Oh.I mean, we could?" Dustin rubs the back of his neck sheepishly. "If you're interested, you know."
"Oh, Dusty." I sigh. "You're not getting out of sharing your secrets that easily."
"Right, no, of course not."
One very excited elevator ride later, I burst into the corporate apartment and search for his laptop. It's almost hidden under a throw pillow on the (definitely very expensive) sofa, and I triumphantly hold it aloft. "Spillin' time!"
"I regret this already," Dustin grumbles but opens it up anyway.
I watch him log into another profile on the machine. He checks the authenticator app on his phone and puts that password in, too. Wow. Very security-minded. He inhales sharply and lets out a long, slow breath.
"Are you sure—"
"Yes!" I pound a fist on the coffee table.
"Alright." He taps an icon, and his cloud drive pops up immediately. "I partitioned the drive and only use my mobile hotspot. But there's something else, and I don't want you to laugh at me, okay?"
I nod and watch as he clicks through the immaculately organized folders. Personal, Education, High School, Transcripts… I almost huff out a sigh, but my name appears on the screen. There it is.
Brooke.
He keys in a numeric code when the folder asks for a password. I can't be sure—his fingers were moving too fast—but I think it might have been my birthdate. As the files load, my breath evaporates. My eyes nearly bug out of my head.
It's all the notes I wrote him. Every single one, scanned and digitized, named by the date I lovingly wrote in the top right corners. He clicks into the first one and every hormone-driven emotion poured into the note jumps out and slaps me in the face.
He kept them. He kept all of them. I reach over and hit the arrow key, bringing up the next one. And the next one. And the next. My loopy handwriting scrawls across each and every page, ending with "Yours, forever" on every single one.
Yours, forever.
