Chase exhaled heavily, running his hand down his face before he said, “And outside Ripley’s, when you told me you didn’t want me anymore, I couldn’t even feel the pain of that because I was just so goddamn happy you were safe.”
Her expression softened before she dropped her eyes to the bed.
“And I couldn’t even sleep last night because I just kept thinking that if this were really the last night you were going to be in my bed, I didn’t want to miss one second of it.”
Andie lifted her eyes to his, and this time they were welled with tears. He moved toward her on the bed, taking her face in his hands.
“I messed up last night. I wasn’t thinking, and I messed up,” he said, swiping his thumbs under her eyes as the first tears fell. “I can’t promise you that I’ll never be an asshole again. But I can promise you that I don’t mean it. And I can’t promise you that I won’t ever make mistakes, but I can promise you that I’ll learn from them and do whatever it takes to make it right with you again.”
Andie closed her eyes, sending two more tears down her cheeks, and Chase brushed them away with his thumbs again. He waited until she opened her eyes before he said, “And I can promise you with my entire being that I don’t think you’re a terrible person. I think you’re the most incredible, selfless, intelligent, brave, beautiful, funny, talented, adorable person I’ve ever met in my life. And I can absolutely promise you that I don’t think this,” he gestured between them, “is wrong. You may very well be the only thing I’ve ever done right.”
Her eyes fell closed as a tiny sob fell from her lips, and when she opened them, she was smiling.
“Did you google ‘best groveling speeches’ while I was passed out?”
Chase smiled slowly, brushing his fingers over her cheek. “Can I kiss you now?” he whispered.
She pulled back slightly. “I have puke breath.”
“I love you,” he said, and her eyes flew to his face, her startled reaction making him smile. “I do. I love you. So I’ll take your kisses any way I can get them, pukey or otherwise.”
Andie inhaled deeply, and when she exhaled, her eyes were shining with tears again. “I love you, too,” she whispered.
Chase smiled, leaning into her. “Then there’s no way this could be wrong,” he whispered against her lips.
She closed the tiny distance between them, bringing her mouth to his, and when his arms came around her, pulling her against his body at last, he knew he would never let her go again.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Andie sat in a long line of cars, drumming her fingers on the steering wheel. She should have known better than to think this would be a quick trip. She had learned, through many years of trial and error, that the best time to go to her bank was first thing in the morning, but that hadn’t been a possibility today.
Today she was lucky if she had time to breathe.
It was a good kind of busy, though. Earlier that morning, she had gone to the restaurant to finalize a few things with Dana, the assistant manager who would be taking over as manager for the next three weeks in Andie’s absence. After that she had gone to Chase’s apartment in the brief window of time that she knew he would be out meeting with a client so she could pack the rest of his things. She still couldn’t believe she hadn’t gotten caught yet; she’d been packing him little by little over the course of the past few days, taking only those things she was sure he wouldn’t be looking for, things he wouldn’t need on a daily basis, so he wouldn’t figure out what she was doing. But today, she had packed the rest of the things he’d need—his toiletries, his shoes, his favorite jeans—and taken his bag back with her. Because tonight she’d come clean.
Tonight, she’d tell him about the surprise.
But first she needed to go to the bank so she could make a deposit into the restaurant’s account, as well as a withdrawal from her personal one in preparation for the trip.
She could see what the holdup was. A few cars ahead, a woman was obviously making several transactions at the drive-up window and had not taken the time—or consideration for that matter—to fill out the slips ahead of time. Andie could see her leaning on the dashboard as she filled out each slip, slowly and methodically.
And while the cars in front of her tooted their horns and inched impatiently forward, Andie couldn’t find it in herself to be annoyed.
She had become one of those people.
Unshakably happy, perpetually content.
Completely in love.
She exhaled softly as she rested her head back on the seat, waiting for the line of cars to move forward. She imagined his face when she told him what she’d been planning, and she couldn’t help the smile that curved her lips.
A few minutes later, the woman with the infinite transactions finally finished her business, and as Andie moved forward in line, the new position of her car gave her a clear view of the café across the street that had just opened.
She had never been there, although she had noticed it several times. It looked quaint and interesting, and today it was warm enough to open the outdoor patio; the tables outside were filled to capacity.
We should go there one day, she thought to herself, glancing down at the clock on the dashboard to check her time. And then she froze, her mind registering what she had just seen. Andie lifted her eyes slowly back to the passenger window, but she didn’t need to look again. She already knew.
The mannerisms. The hair color. The deep blue button-down she had loved because it brought out his eyes. The tie she had gotten him for Christmas.
Colin.
She hadn’t realized she’d stopped breathing until she heard the quick intake of breath and recognized it as her own.
The last time she had seen him was over three months ago, the night she declined his proposal. They had only spoken twice after that night, and both were short phone conversations.
Both before he knew about her and Chase.
He had been cold, and formal, and she had understood. They made arrangements to return each other’s things, and Colin wanted to do it in a way that would not involve them seeing each other. It was then Andie realized that as much as she wished she could talk to him, as much as she wanted to explain things to him, he was not ready to hear it. And for the first time, she understood that he might never be.
It hurt her to think that. To think that someone she truly cared about, someone who had been important to her, would never be in her life again. But when she thought of the alternative, thought of what her life would have been like if she had never turned him down, she knew it was worth it. Everything she had done, every tough decision she had made, had brought her to Chase. He was beyond worth it.
Yet as she stared out the passenger window at him, she couldn’t help the twinge she felt in her chest.
“It’s okay to miss him,” Chase had said to her one night when she had been particularly quiet, seemingly lost in her thoughts. “I miss him too.”
Her last memories of Colin were so awfuclass="underline" the look on his face the last time she saw him, the aloof way he had spoken to her on the phone.