I wait for her to respond, but her eyes remain fixed on the front cover, fingers tracing the title.
“I saw you eyeing it at the bookstore the other day.”
“It’s too much,” she says, voice trembling.
“Fish, look at me.”
She meets my gaze, emotion warring behind the features she tries so hard to keep locked down. “I know how much this cost, Connor, and it’s too much.”
What the early edition hardback ofLittle Womenmeans to her is way more valuable than the money in my bank account. After everything she told me yesterday about the first copy I gave her all those years ago, the birthday card she’s kept, the fact that she rereads it because it reminds her of me—it means even more now.
I take her hand. “You said that the day I gave you this book the first time felt like the start ofus.You asked me then if I thought your birth parents thought about you.”
A tear runs down her cheek and I catch it with my thumb.
“Look where we are now, Gretch. The same boy gifting the same book to the same girl. And I get to be the one to watch you celebrate your birthday with your birth family for the first time today.” I tap my finger on the book she now clutches to her chest. “This? It could never be too much because it’s not enough. I’ll buy you a new copy every year if you’ll let me, to remind you of where we started.”
Without a word, she looks at the book and then reaches across me to set it on the nightstand. After she wipes her eyes behind the lenses of her glasses, she pushes them back up the bridge of her nose and moves to straddle me. The look on her face a mix of affection and some sort of resolve, like she’s decided to do something, has me awaiting her next move.
My hands land on her bare thighs, her shirt having ridden up high enough for me to see the peek of white cotton panties underneath. I try not to think about all the layers of clothing that are lacking between us in this position.
She rests her forehead against mine, my face cradled in her palms. “I…um…” She hesitates, fingers fidgeting in the scruff along my jaw. Her resolve withers with each silent second that passes. “Thank you,” she finally whispers. It’s not what she was going to say, that much I know.
“You’re welcome.”
My palms run the length of her legs, up to her waist and back again. Her eyes remain closed as she tries to find her words. Or maybe the courage to say them at all.
“You wanna make out now?” I ask into the nervous silence because I just want to see her smile.
A grin tugs at her lips before she slowly lowers her lips to mine. Her arms wrap around my neck, forearms squeezing me into her chest. I brace my arms across her back, my palm splayed over her shoulder blades.
It would be so easy to take things further, to let my hands wander the miles of exposed skin she has draped around me. She could make the first move with a single rock of her hips. But neither of us do anything of the sort. It’s simply two mouths in harmony with two hearts and an embrace so tight it’s hard to breathe.
She may not have said the words, but I feel them in the arms she has wrapped around me, her mouth that moves unhurriedly against mine, like she never plans on letting me go. Like she’s in no rush because she knows as well as I do that there’s a forever ahead of us. A forever that’s as true now as it was then.
I’m glad she didn’t say them.
Because I want—I need—to be the one to say them first.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
I DON’T THINK I BROUGHT ENOUGH TEQUILA
Gretchen
Drew
Happy Birthday! Sorry I’m not there to celebrate with you.
Me
Thank you! Love you.
Drew
Love you more.
I tuckmy phone in the cup holder as we pull into my family’s neighborhood. As soon as my hand is free, Connor wastes no time taking it in his again.
