“If I could.” He reaches his hand over the table and takes hold of mine, and I let him. The feel of his skin on mine is everything that I’ve been missing. “Dillon, do you love me?”
Do I love him?
Is the sky blue? Do birds sing in the morning?
“Yes,” I whisper. “I love you.”
Relief covers his face. It’s crazy to me that he even considered that I might not.
“Then, come back to America with me.”
“I can’t. I just got this job. I can’t just quit and come to the States with you.”
“Why not?”
“Because … well, because eventually, I would have to come back home. I can’t stay in America forever. I only get a limited time there, and I can’t quit this job because I’d have to come back here and then get another, meaning—”
“Dillon.” He leans over the table and presses his lips to mine.
He kisses me, and everything just disappears. All the hurt I felt, the anger, and the disappointment. Nothing seems to matter anymore now that he’s here and kissing me.
“Sorry,” he whispers, moving back. “But I couldn’t wait any longer to kiss you.”
“It’s fine,” I breathe. “Feel free to shut me up that way anytime.”
A smile touches his lips. “Noted. Now, back to you coming to the States with me.”
“I can’t—”
He holds up a hand, cutting me off. “You can apply for a work visa.”
“But I don’t have a job in the States. Duh.”
He laughs a deep, husky sound, and it makes my stomach swoop and dive, like there’s a flock of birds in there.
“God, I’ve missed you. And you’re right. You don’t currently have a job in the States, but you do potentially have an American publisher.”
“I’m sorry, what now?”
He gives me a nervous look. “Okay, so don’t be mad, but I might have given The Two-Week Stand to an editor friend of my teammate’s for her to read, and she loved it. She wants to set up a meeting with you to talk about them publishing it.”
“You … what? I’m … what?”
He laughs a low, toe-curling sound. “Her name is Addison. She gave me her number for you to call her.”
“A publisher … wants to publish my book? For real?”
“For real.” He smiles.
And I can’t even be mad that he went and gave my unedited book to an editor to read because he said that she loves it.
She loves it.
Oh. My. Fucking. God.
“So, if you get this deal—which you will because you’re a fucking awesome writer—then you’ll have work ties to the US because of your publisher.”
“And I’ll be able to stay there. With you.”
He cups my face with his hand. “Yeah, babe, with me.”
So, my choices are to stay in Hull, working at this coffee shop, or go live in America with the man I love and have my book published, living out my dream?
Hmm. It’s a tough one.
“I’ll be paying rent this time,” I tell him firmly.
When he got me to the States last time, he wouldn’t take any money from me for rent. The only thing I could do to contribute was buy groceries, and he wasn’t even keen on that.
A smile lights up his face. “I’ll do whatever it takes to get you back home with me.”
Home. With West. Now, that sounds pretty damn good.
“I love you, Double D. Pretty sure I have since the moment you stumbled into the bar on the island.”
“You fell in love with me that night?” I give him a dubious look.
“Okay, well, maybe not that exact night. It was probably the night when you let me stick my dick in you for the first time.”
“So romantic.” I roll my eyes.
“I’m not. But for you, I’ll try.”
And that there is the most romantic thing he could have said. My eyes start to fill with tears.
“Shit, I upset you. I’m sorry.” His eyes are bright with worry.
“No, they’re good tears, I promise. I’m just … happy—that’s all.”
“Thank fuck. And I promise you, I plan on spending the rest of forever trying to make you happy.”
Forever.
Who would’ve thought that my two-week stand would turn into forever? Definitely not me. But here we are.
I take West’s hand in mine and squeeze it. “I promise to make you happy too.”
“You already do, Double D. You have since the moment you came into the bar and sat on the stool next to me. I might not have loved you then, but you’ve been making me happy since the moment we met.”
That makes me smile. “You too.”
He lifts a brow. “You don’t remember that night.”
“Semantics. I might not remember, but I know that you made me happy, for sure. Just because my brain is shit and—”
“Dillon.”
“What?”
He kisses me again. “I love you,” he says against my lips.
Smiling, my heart full of everything that I feel for him, I whisper, “I love you too, West.”
epilogue
West
“Beer and a Long Island iced tea,” I tell the bartender.
Dillon and I are back on the island where we first met three years ago. I’m sitting in the bar, on the exact stool my bored ass was sitting on when I first laid eyes on her. Only I’m not bored this time. I’m actually nervous as fuck.
I’ve just ordered the same damn drinks we both had on that first meeting. The bartender is the same guy who served me all those years ago. He actually remembers us. Well, he remembers Dillon and how drunk she was that night.
Although, drunk or sober, my girl is unforgettable.
And, yes, even though Dillon was wasted that night and remembers very little about it, I remember everything. That night changed my life. She changed my life.
These last three years with her have been amazing. Just being with her, living with her, loving her … it’s so effortless. We fit together. We make each other happy. We make each other better. Well, she makes me better. Dillon was already awesome as fuck.
In the last few years that we’ve been together, my game has only improved. Coach was right when he said Dillon made a difference in my game. Because she makes me happy. When I’m happy, I play at my best.
I can’t believe that I ever thought I didn’t need someone. That I didn’t need her. Dillon is my whole life. Every decision I make, I make with her in mind.
Dillon’s career is soaring, and I’m so fucking proud of her. She’s released three books in the time we’ve been together, including The Two-Week Stand, which absolutely flew off the shelves. It became an overnight best seller, landing on a bunch of lists, one being The New York Times. Dillon absolutely freaked when she got the news. We had a big celebration that night. The books Dillon has written since The Two-Week Stand have all been a part of a series following on from it but about different characters, which, of course, are fictional. We’ve never told anyone that the book is based on our first meeting. That’s something we want to keep private between the two of us.