Fitz went home on a red-eye last night. While staying in the city he slept on Harrison’s couch. He stopped by the hospital yesterday before he left, but thankfully the letter wasn’t mentioned again.
I buckle my seat belt, wincing in pain. Broken ribs take weeks to heal, and it turns out there’s no way to treat them. Kind of makes me grateful for my broken brain and the modern medicine that’s supposed to help.
She reaches across the back seat and squeezes my hand. “How are you feeling?”
“I’m fine.” It’s both true and it’s not.
“How did you leave things with Fitz?”
I shrug and lean against the headrest, wishing for the hundredth time that I’d said goodbye before he got on that plane. I’ll see him in Arizona, but the way he left feels wrong, and I wish he were here with me. I bet a part of me will always feel that way, whether I’m at home in Gilbert or scaling ruins in Peru.
I close my eyes and let the tears slide down my face.
The car slows to a stop and Mom shakes me. I wasn’t asleep, though. Just lost in a daydream. I unbuckle my seat belt and open the door.
“Where are we?”
It’s not the airport, and it’s not Central Park. Riverside Park. How do I know that? A picture from my wall, or a scene from a movie, maybe. A long, wide stone path unfurls at my feet. Bare tree branches line the path. Sitting on the bench closest to the car, with his head in his hands, is Fitz.
He looks up, and my heart catches in my chest.
“What’s he doing here?”
“Go on.” Mom hands me her credit card. “Use this to grab a ride to the airport. You have a couple of hours before you need to meet me.” I step gingerly out of the car. The door shuts behind me and the car pulls away.
Fitz slowly moves toward me, his hands up in the universal signal of surrender. “This isn’t a gesture!” he calls out, stopping several paces away. Leaving it up to me to close the gap.
“It’s not?” I’m drawn to him by an invisible force.
“No. It’s come to my attention that you hate them.” He smothers a smile. “Have you always hated them?” He stuffs his hands into his pockets and moves toward me.
“Only ’cause I was jealous. And then ’cause I was scared.”
“I’m scared all the time. When I got the call about you and the taxi—” He shudders. “I’ve never been so scared in my entire life.” We stop, the fronts of our shoes bumping together. I don’t know if we’ve ever been this close. Not since the day I realized I loved him in the homemade snowstorm. “I’m scared of you leaving Gilbert and forgetting all about me. I’m scared that you’ll never be able to see me as anything other than an irresponsible screwup, the boy who couldn’t make up his mind or keep a girl.”
“I don’t think of you that way.” Not really. Harrison messed with my head, made me doubt my relationship with Fitz, but the truth is, I’ve always loved his fearless heart.
“I’m terrified out of my mind right now.” He swallows, his face an open book of hope and dread. His fingertips brush lightly above my right eyebrow. “This is where my tooth busted open your forehead.”
“I wasn’t sure if you remembered that.”
“I remember everything.”
This seems to require a response, but my brain has stopped working. “Being this close to you is against my rules,” I confess.
“You have rules?” This perks him up.
“Oh, yeah. You have no idea how many times those rules saved me.”
“From what?”
“Ruining everything between you and me.”
“You could never.” He shakes his hair out of his eyes and my bones puddle at my feet.
“I could have.”
“Show me.” He bites his lip, fighting a smile. “Show me what you would have done that would have ruined everything.” Clearly, he’s loving this. Judging by the wild skip of my pulse, I am too.
“The rules are as follows: No touching unless it’s accidental, helpful, or necessary.”
I expect Fitz to unleash the full force of his grin, but instead his eyes turn smoky. I stop breathing. “We’re not touching, Collins.”
“True,” I say in a shaky voice.
“And when I do touch you, you better believe it’ll be necessary.”
I swallow. My breath turns shallow.
“But first I have some things to say. I should have known I was in love with you the moment I created that snowstorm, and your reaction was all I thought about for weeks. Every gesture, with every other girl, was an idiotic attempt to chase that high I felt when I made you happy. I knew I was probably in love with you the moment I chose to invite you to the cabin even when it meant losing Molly. I knew I was definitely in love with you when you went to New York instead.”
“It wasn’t the letter?”
He shakes his head. “But I wanted the letter to say what it did. So badly. You have no idea.”
I reach my hand into his back pocket. Fitz’s eyebrows go sky-high. “Is this accidental, helpful, or necessary?” He grins wickedly.
I’m extremely relieved when my letter is still there. He tries to snatch it from me, reaching around my back. “Hey. Look at that,” he says when he realizes his arms are around my waist. “Clever. Are you hitting on me, Collins?”
“I’m burning this letter.”
“No! I love it! I’m gonna frame it and hang it above my bed. I’ll read it every night and cry into my pillow when you’re gone.”
“I said horrible things.”
“You? Never.” His smile grows.
I take his chin in my hand and lock his eyes on mine so he’ll know I’m serious. “I love you, and I’ve never regretted it. Not for a second.”
His eyes are smoke and ash and fire, burning right through me. He tilts his lips to meet mine, and I’m lit up. I’m every firework in the whole Fourth of July parade. I didn’t know it could be like this. I wrap my hands around his back and pull him closer, determined to stay here until we’re forcibly kicked out.
“Wow,” he breathes, his breath hot and sweet. “That was the best kiss.” He rests his forehead against mine, his eyelashes fluttering as my stomach responds in kind.
“For me too. In all the universes in the multiverse.”
Fitz’s grin explodes.
“What?”
“Look up,” he whispers, gently squeezing my waist.
Light, fluffy snowflakes dance around us. Fitz and me, in our own personal snow globe. I smile at him, dazzled by the snow and the nearness of him and his hands around my waist. “You, Fitz Wilding, are the best decision I ever made.”
I kneel on the tile floor and peer into the oven. The rolls inside are rising steadily and I sink back onto my heels, smiling.
Magic. Every time.
The squeak of the garage door alerts me to Mom’s presence. Thirty seconds later she’s in the kitchen, dropping her purse and a stack of mail on the counter. “What smells so good?”
“Cinnamon rolls.”
A pause. “How was therapy today?”
“Good.” The timer dings and I pull the rolls out of the oven.