Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 81281 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 406(@200wpm)___ 325(@250wpm)___ 271(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 81281 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 406(@200wpm)___ 325(@250wpm)___ 271(@300wpm)
He smiles at me in understanding.
“I know what it cost you to tell me what you told me. And then I used it as leverage, and you had every right to be furious. I’m sorry.”
His expression gentles. “I punished you for what Adam did,” he replies. “I handed you the worst thing I had and then used it as evidence against you before you could even respond to it.” He shakes his head slightly. “That’s not on you. That’s on me.”
“We both have things to own.”
“Yeah.” His hand is on the side of my face. “We do.”
“So, we own them and then we move forward.”
He looks at me, his icy eyes full of warmth. “You make it sound simple.”
“It’s not simple.” I put my hand over his heart. “But it’s possible. You just stood on a stage in front of your entire team and said you love me. I think you can handle the rest of it.”
Relief fills every line on his face. “I do,” he says earnestly. “Love you.” He says it the second time like the first time unlocked the door, like having said it out loud once made it easier to say again. “I’m not someone who says that.”
“I know,” I say.
“I’m saying it anyway.”
“I know,” I say again.
“Livia.”
“I love you too,” I say, giving him a soft kiss. “This is real and it’s our time now.”
He exhales a ragged sigh. Then he kisses me again, just the two of us at the bottom of a karaoke stage in the back of a bar with his teammates giving us slightly too much attention.
“Oi,” Boss calls from somewhere behind us. “Are we done? Because I want to sing a song… maybe a love ballad this time.”
Locke lifts his head.
He looks at me.
He looks at the room.
At Rome with his quiet steady expression, at Arch grinning with the easy warmth that is just who he is, at Crosby who’s been here before and is glad to see someone else arrive, at Boss who’s ready to sing loud.
Locke’s gaze slides to Birdie in the corner and Juno who is watching all of it with those clear eyes and not reaching for her camera, which is the best thing she could do.
He looks at all of it—this team, this city, this bar—and his eyes settle into something contented. As if he has just opened up and accepted everything.
“Yeah,” he says to Boss. “We’re done.”
Locke takes my hand.
Boss puts the microphone to his mouth, and the karaoke machine comes back to life.
The room reassembles around us and I stand with Locke’s hand in mine. I think about everything that led here—the winery and the sessions and the hotel in LA and the parking lot with Grant.
I think about all the ways two people who are very good at managing everything nearly managed themselves out of the best thing either of them had found.
We didn’t.
That’s the whole of it.
We didn’t.
Chapter 31
Locke
Someone’s banging on my front door.
I register it from the level below consciousness first and finally open one eye. The ceiling of my bedroom, which is familiar.
The gray winter light coming through the curtains.
Livia’s arm across my chest.
I close my eyes and relish this feeling of completeness.
The banging continues.
Livia stirs and makes a sound against my shoulder that is not a word but is somewhere in the vicinity of What is that and make it stop.
I identify with the sentiment completely.
I reach for my phone on the nightstand. Eight forty-seven a.m.
We were supposed to be somewhere at nine.
I lie there considering whether I have to really answer the door and come up empty. The banging has settled into a patient rhythm now—not urgent, not going away.
“Will you just go let him in,” Livia murmurs.
I lean over and press a kiss to her temple. “Fine.”
I extract myself from under her arm and pull a pair of sweats from my drawer, all so I can get to the door before Arch wakes up the entire neighborhood.
The house is a rental in a quiet area about fifteen minutes from the performance facility. Nothing overly luxurious, but it has three bedrooms and a yard with actual trees. It’s not the land I’ve been looking at east of the city where I’d like to build, but it will do for the time being.
I pull open the front door.
Arch is on the porch in a jacket and a grin, a coffee carrier in one hand with three cups in it. He looks at my face, at the sweatpants, at the hour, and his grin widens which I find deeply irritating.
“You forgot,” he says.
“I didn’t forget.”
“You absolutely forgot.”
“I was informed of the time and I was managing it.”
“You were asleep.”
“I was horizontal and aware.”
He holds up the coffee. “I brought three.”
“Thoughtful,” I say and step back to give him room to enter.