He frowned down at me. “Mina.”
“I freaked out,” I said. “I admit it. I got scared, Holden, because you’re you, and this is a big deal, and I love you, and for a while there I didn’t believe in it. Because it was easier not to believe than to step up and make it work.”
“Okay,” he said. “Stop talking.” He took my face gently in his hands and kissed me. Slower this time, more lingering, but still sweet. He tasted so good. When he finished, still cradling my face, he said, “You love me?”
I closed my eyes for a second, letting the tears burn behind them. Overcoming the fear was the right thing to do, but no one ever said it was easy. “You know I do,” I said, my voice shaky. “How can you doubt it?”
He put his arms around me and held me close. He had that great Holden smell. He dipped his mouth against my neck and kissed me, saying in a low voice, “Good, because I love you, too. And I understand about the fear. I felt the same way after prom night—too scared because it mattered too much. The difference is that you had the guts to do something about it before ten years went by.”
I leaned up and kissed him, again and again. “I’m sorry my creepy boss keeps hitting on you,” I said.
“I blocked her number.”
“Good. I quit my job. Not just because of her. I hated it there anyway.”
His hands went around to the back of my dress, where he lowered the zipper by one inch, and then two. “I know you quit,” he said. “I ran into Tess in the hallway. Actually, she came out of her apartment when I walked by. She told me you’re going to take over your friend’s dance studio.”
“I was going to tell you that.” Bonnie had called me two days ago. She was pregnant, and her husband had just gotten a job offer upstate. They wanted to leave the city. At first she wanted to know if I would take over giving lessons for a few weeks while she made arrangements, but we ended up discussing keeping the studio on with me as the manager and teacher. In the future, we’d make an arrangement for me to buy the studio from her altogether.
It wasn’t acting and singing on Broadway. It wasn’t becoming Adele. But I didn’t need to be Adele to be happy. I needed to be doing what I loved, in the city I loved, with the man I loved alongside me. That was what I needed.
Besides, there was no rule that said I couldn’t still do auditions. Because you never know, right? The girl who never makes it is the girl who never tries.
“Tess also says that you owe her,” Holden said. “So she wants an ice cream brownie after the movie tomorrow.”
“That kid is a brat,” I said. “I’m going to miss her when she goes home. Can we get naked now?”
Holden was reading my mind, because somehow the zipper of my dress was already all the way down my back. Also, at the same time, somehow I’d pulled his uniform shirt out and had unbuttoned it halfway. I couldn’t get Holden naked fast enough.
He kissed me again, and this time I knew that whatever was coming next was going to be very, very dirty.
“You’re mine, Mina,” he said. “All mine. And I’ll do whatever you say.”
Epilogue
Holden
Six Months Later
This was the big night.
I’d asked Mina to marry me a week ago. I’d done it after dinner on top of Rockefeller Center, as if we were tourists who had never been to New York before. The night set me back at least five hours of overtime pay, but it was worth it. She said yes.
Then she suggested we throw a party.
To be fair, our apartment was a pretty great place to have a celebration. I’d moved in to Mina’s place after her absent roommate, Theda, got a long-term role in a Vegas show and decided to move to Vegas. Mina needed someone to pay half the rent, and we wanted to be apart as little as possible. Besides, I was already planning to persuade her to marry me by then. Moving in was just the first step.
I rolled out of bed naked and reached for my boxer briefs where they’d been dropped on the floor—or, more accurately, ripped off me. “Sweetheart, you have to get up,” I said. “Everyone’s going to be here in thirty minutes.”
The reply was a relaxed, satisfied moan from naked Mina on the bed. We’d tried getting ready for the party, we really had. We’d taken a shower and everything. The problem was that the shower required nakedness, which led to wet skin and kissing, which led to me being deep inside my fiancée and getting her to make that sweet, sexy sound in the back of her throat when she came. Which led to us being naked when we were supposed to get dressed.
I pulled on my boxer briefs and grabbed her bare, shapely ankle. “Come on. Or I’ll get on that bed and ravish you again.”
“That sounds nice,” Mina said, her hair mussed on the pillow. “Whose stupid idea was this party, anyway?”
“Yours.”
“Oh. Right.” She blew out a breath and sat up, running her hand through her tangled hair. I watched the small, slim ring I’d given her glint in the low light. I never got tired of seeing that ring. “We’re pretty much ready, I think, except for the nakedness.”
I put on jeans and a navy blue Henley, then went out into the living room. We had food ready, along with wine, beer, and soda. Music was cued up on the stereo. In the bedroom, Mina pulled on the black-and-white polka-dot dress she’d bought and twisted up her hair. While she put makeup on, people started buzzing to come up.
Eric and Rachel came. Grim and his girlfriend, Selena. Daniela and the woman she was seeing, Charlotte. More of my coworkers—whoever wasn’t on shift.
Then Mina’s dance students started showing up. The studio she’d taken over was a solid success, so much so that she couldn’t teach all the classes herself. She had expanded the roster of classes, from beginner ballet to advanced swing dance, and she’d hired additional teachers. They came, too, bringing drinks and food and laughter.
Mina circulated around, talking to everyone, and then she turned to the door. Tess stood there.
She’d gone back to live with her parents soon after Mina and I reunited, and though Mina had taken it hard, we’d made the effort to keep Tess in our lives. Long Island wasn’t far, and we made trips to see Tess on weekends and at Christmas. And now she was here for our engagement party.
She was growing like a weed. She was almost fifteen now, and she’d put a homemade streak of purple in her hair. Mina’s face lit up and she rushed to her friend, giving her a hug. Tess rolled her eyes, but it was all for show. I saw her grip Mina just as hard as Mina was gripping her.
The party was in full swing. Our friends were all here, laughing and celebrating with us that Mina and I were going to get married. I went back and forth between excitement and not being able to believe this was my fucking life.
I glanced down at my left wrist, where I wore Caleb’s watch. Mina had given it back to me, and I had finally accepted it. I was ready.
Caleb was my brother, and I had loved him, and I had lost him. But losing him didn’t make me love him any less. He was a part of me, and he always would be. He’d never meant to hurt me. I thought maybe he’d be happy to know what my life was like right now, at long last.