I pushed the plates aside so I could crawl into Max’s lap. He held me close, nudged his nose against mine. “I still had hang-ups I needed to process,” I said. “Things I needed to, and want to, compromise on with you. I want us to be real partners in life, and I don’t care what that looks like. Whatever the adventure is, I just want to do it together. I had a lot of time to think these past ten days, to think about what you showed me. Loving you is unquantifiable. Love’s not a calculated risk. It’s a leap of faith.”
He tugged me closer. “Do you want to leap with me?”
I pressed my lips to his. “I’d say we already have.” I pulled back to catch his eye. “I love my fucking bike.”
His smile was slow and sexy. “Dream woman, Fiona.”
“I know that,” I teased. “I want you to move home and be with me. I also want to spend a lot of time on road trips with you. Getting lost. Seeing this country. Being a little more free. We can have roots and still be wild. Your itchy feet aren’t a negative thing about you. And I don’t want you to suppress something that makes you happy.”
Max brushed the hair from my shoulder, studying me. “I’d like that a whole hell of a lot. I promise I make gettin’ a little lost on the road really fun.”
I laughed. “I can’t wait for whatever depraved sex acts you have planned for me.”
His brow arched. “Speaking of plans.” He set me down gently. Grabbed what looked like a sheet of paper before returning. He coughed, looking nervous for the first time. “I, uh… well, I had to go to an office supply store and ask them how to put that hard plastic on it. And I even picked up a couple packs of sticky notes.”
My eyes widened. I gripped the paper. The laminated paper. “Wait. You mean you had this laminated?”
Max sank down next to me, linking our hands together again. “Yeah. The nice guy who worked there helped me figure it out. I told him I was about to go pledge my undying love to a woman with an adorable obsession with outcomes and spreadsheets.”
My heart stuttered to a stop. I was holding a goddamn laminated piece of paper with How I’ll Prove My Commitment to Fiona across the top.
“Oh my god,” I whispered.
“Like Pop, I’m not, uh… the best with words. But I wrote this up and Mateo helped. I know what commitment means to you. And my track record on sticking around is pretty shit. So I thought I’d show you that I am the marrying kind.”
Stunned, I looked down at the paper. It was a neatly typed list. Cook her dinner whenever she asks. Take her dancing at The Red Room. Go on an epic road trip. Call her all the time. Learn how to give a real foot massage. Dress up as David Bowie and perform “Young Americans” to make her laugh. Have a picnic date at Central Park. Go to band practice with The Hand Grenades. Hang out with Roxy and Edward. Introduce Fiona to Mateo’s family. Take her as my date to Mateo’s wedding.
The list went on and on. He’d signed and dated it at the bottom.
“It’s no light celibacy contract,” he said, with a wicked smile. “But I want you to know that I’m way past trying, princess. I want to commit to all of you.”
I closed my eyes. More tears rolled down my cheeks. This moment, right here, was bonfire flames and city nights and live music and free-falling all rolled into one.
What a fucking rush.
The hurricane was back, and I welcomed it, welcomed the way Max made my heart feel absolutely exhilarated with loving him.
“I’m ready,” I said. I crawled back into his lap and kissed Max with all of my longing, all of my yearning. “Let’s fall together.”
We didn’t leave that floor for a long time after.
The next morning, Max and I both straddled our motorcycles, helmets tucked under our arms. The sky was a gorgeous peach-pink as the sun rose and birds sang in the trees.
It was going to be a good day.
“We really have twenty days to get home?” Max asked, squinting into the sun.
I let out a happy sigh. “Sure do. I’ll let you lead if you promise to take me to your favorite spots.”
“Well damn, Fiona.” He grinned. “This is gonna be an epic fucking road trip.”
“That was kind of my plan.”
He leaned forward for a quick kiss. “I love your plans. By the way, I synced our stereo systems up.” He held up his phone. “I was thinking The Clash for our first ride together?”
Max looked as devilishly handsome as the moment we’d re-met on that fire escape. I fisted his shirt and yanked him back for a harder kiss. “And I’m thinking we should fulfill that motorcycle fantasy soon.”
Max winked at me before tugging his helmet on. “Your new boyfriend is at your service.”
It was a moment I’d remember forever. The music, the sound of our engines, the breeze, Max’s laughter, my heart racing, my pulse roaring in my ears. This was love—in all of its wild and unruly chaos.
This was truly chasing joy.
Max gave me that swoon-worthy grin before roaring off down the road.
As it turned out, my proven system of contracts and outcomes had been wrong after all. True love couldn’t be tied to any data point or personal outcome. What I felt for Max was undefinable and exhilarating, beautiful and mysterious.
Which was the point. My soul mate had shown me that.
As the sun rose above me, I rode down the road, following my bad boy with the heart of gold. I’d fallen hopelessly in love with the anti-Prince Charming.
And I was no princess in need of saving.
But we finally got our fairytale ending.
Epilogue
MAX
Eighteen Months Later
I tapped my foot in time to the music coming from beneath the fire escape. It was Friday night at The Red Room, and a small crowd of people was already spilling out onto the street, waiting for my signal.
The ring box sat propped on my knee. I flicked it open, then closed. Thought about the night Fiona and I re-met each other on this fire escape. The way she’d turned me down had my palms sweating and my head spinning.
And then she went ahead and stole my heart while she was at it.
Right on schedule, my gorgeous girlfriend hooked her fingers beneath the open window and easily climbed through. Barefoot, of course.
“Don’t fall,” I said with a grin. Fiona blew the hair from her eyes and beamed at me.
“Wait. Are you Max Devlin?”
“You laugh,” I drawled. “But you were a real heartbreaker that night, princess.”
She pursed those mischievous lips. “I heard it turned out alright, though.”
“Really? I heard they’re just friends.”
She laughed before settling between my legs, back to my chest. She wiggled, got close. It was a crisp and chilly November night, so I wrapped my arms around her and pressed a kiss to the top of her head.
This vantage point would be perfect. The planning for this night had been a lot, but if there was anything Fiona appreciated, it was a damn good plan. Something I’d learned in the past year of living together with her adorably organized ways. Six months after we rode back into the city on our motorcycles, Fiona and I moved into an apartment in the East Village, close to The Red Room, Pop, and Mateo’s gallery. It was filled with records and checklists, bike tools and concert posters. Music was always playing, and more often than not, we ended up dancing in our living room after dinner.