“Hey, Erik, there’s a delivery waiting for you at the front desk,” she says.
I tilt my head. “Delivery?”
“Yeah, it’s being delivered by someone called Luke…” She furrows her brow. “Shoot, I forgot his last name.”
Wait a second. Could it be… “Tremblay?”
Ivy’s face clicks with recognition. “Yeah, I think that’s it. Anyway, he said that you should check the confirmation email to verify that or something.”
Luke is here?
I suck in a sharp breath through my teeth as I break into a smile.
Luke is here. In Minneapolis. Now. Waiting for me. All because my dumb ass couldn’t charge a phone without blowing it upandfreezing it in the space of an hour.
“I have to go,” I blurt out, standing up so quickly that the chair I was sitting in topples over onto the floor.
“Whoa, slow down,” Richard says. “What’s he delivering that’s so important?”
I’m already halfway out of the room, and I don’t turn back. “Himself.”
I don’t elaborate, I run. Out of the room, around the corner, along the hallway, and out into the reception area.
And there he is. Luke, in all his glory, all relaxed and looking good enough to devour. He’s tapping at his phone, but he smiles as soon as he notices me.
My god, that smile! It’s bright enough to give you a sunburn in the depths of a polar night.
“Hey, Erik,” he says, taking a few steps toward me.
My reply is to wrap him in the tightest hug I can manage. I think his back pops, but I could be hearing things wrong. If he wants me to let go, he’s out of luck because I can’t.
“You’re here,” I whisper, kissing him on the forehead. “I can’t believe it.”
“Oof, thank Nils for convincing me,” he grunts, his voice strained.
“Nils?” I ask.
Luke laughs and grins up at me. “Yeah, he convinced me that coming here to you wasn’t a massively disproportionate response to your phone being off.”
“Right, about that,” I start, sheepishly scratching the back of my neck, “I put my phone down and it fell onto the rink. Then it short-circuited and froze.”
“Are you serious?” Luke brings a hand to his face, trying to appear shocked, but I can see right through him.
“Completely,” I say, brushing his hand away from his mouth. He’s biting his lip, still attempting to suppress laughter, so I shake his shoulder. “It’s okay, you can make fun of me.”
Luke snickers before composing himself. “Anyway, one of the reasons why I came here is because I need to give you some amazing news.” He reaches into his backpack, pulling out a folded piece of paper and handing it to me.
I stare at the paper. Even though my French isn’t great, I understand that Lucas Gabriel Tremblay est français.
What the?—
“Surprise, I’m French!” Luke says. “That means I can move to Sweden whenever I want, I can stay however long I want, and I can transfer my job?—”
He doesn’t get to finish that sentence because I crush my lips against his. The grouchy receptionist is nowhere to be seen, my heart is overflowing, and there’s no holding back.
Luke fixes his eyes on mine as he pulls away. “Yeah, I’m so excited. This has been a long time coming for us.”
“Oh yeah, absolutely,” I say. “This is amazing.You’reamazing, and?—”
