He hides the smile with his hand as he rubs his chin, but his shoulders are shaking with silent laughter. He brings our hands up to his mouth and presses a kiss to my knuckles.
“I don’t want to go back that far,” he says. “I don’t want to redo any of it. Everything I’ve done for you and with you? You couldn’t pay me to change that.”
“But you called a redo. You said I could have one redo for anything I wanted, and I want one for each event since I met you. That’s not too much to ask, I don’t think.”
He chuckles, his fingers turning in my hand to link together with mine. He’s not shaking anymore. He’s not nervously clenching his fists or bouncing his legs, and I can see a warm light brightening the green of his eyes. It’s like a weight has toppled off our shoulders, for both of us.
“I just want to redo something I said to you,” he says. “I’ve wanted to take it back for three weeks.”
My heart stops. It would be just my luck that he’s asking to redo that night—the only one I’d rather not redo.
“You were right,” he says, and I wildly shake my head back and forth, whipping my already messy hair into an even more tangled state.
“No…I was wrong,” I tell him. “So very wrong. Right now I’m right. I need to redo everythi—”
He puts his fingers up against my lips with a stern look, and my shoulders drop in surrender.
“There was a night when I helped wash your dishes. You remember?”
“There were a lot of those, Alec.”
That makes him break, a half grin cracking his face. “Well…I asked you if you were sleeping with Jace.”
“Oh yeah, the night you had a giant brain paranoia fart.”
“You said you wouldn’t sleep with me because it’d mean something.” His breath catches a little and I watch his ears redden. “You were right. For three weeks I’ve been trying not to let you see just how much that night meant, because, hell, it was the best night of my life. And I’m the schmuck who just left you. I left you alone, and damn it, I’m sorry. You’re right—I shouldn’t have left at all, even if I thought I had a good reason for it. Even though you were crying.”
“It was happy crying!” I say, gripping his shoulders and shaking them in mock anger. He laughs and takes my hands in his again.
“Look…the real reason I left…well, I’ve never been able to forget why I love you, and I was in danger of saying it out loud again. Over and over again, and I didn’t want to deal with the pain that you wouldn’t say it ba—”
I slam a hand over his mouth so that his I love you doesn’t get lost in the rest of his sentence. Those were the words I was afraid I’d never hear from him again.
“You still love me?” I ask, my voice a breathless, blissful whisper amid the noise of the train station.
He nods, and I let my hand drop slowly from his mouth to the collar of his jacket. He still loves me, even after all this time, all these years, even this disaster of an evening, and I start to wonder if fate really is on my side after all.
He takes hold of the hand I have on his collar and locks his eyes with mine. “If I’d have told you that night, would it have changed anything?”
If he’d said it, it just would’ve made that night more perfect than it already was.
“We probably would’ve gone for round two.”
His smile is something that should be on a GQ cover, melting my insides and filling them up all at once. I can hear the train pulling into the station, and he presses his forehead against mine quickly before helping me to my feet.
“I think I love you,” he says with a wiseass grin that takes me back to my apartment just over a year ago. He’s giving me my redo.
“I think I love you too.”
His dimple twitches, and he reaches out for my waist. I trip my way over to him, heart palpitating in the rhythm of the song I wrote for him, and I’m trying to erase my smile, but I can’t, so when his lips meet mine, I swear all he gets is teeth at first.
His hands dip into my jacket pockets as my arms wrap around his neck. He tastes like friendship and love and forever, and I want this moment to last just that long. But his lips pull away, and I watch as his brow furrows. He looks down at my jacket pocket and pulls on the long, red scarf I stuffed in there earlier. The corner of his mouth twitches up.
“You stole this from me.”
My jaw drops in mock shock. “I did not. I won that fair and square.”
I poke him in the dimple. He pokes me in the side. We poke and laugh and redo yet another night, another moment, this time in equal parts love and friendship. He tosses the scarf over my head, lets it drop to my waist, then uses it to pull me in even closer. His breath is warm and good and everything I want in this moment, and whenever I ease forward into a kiss he leans back, like two opposite sides of a magnet.
“Kiss me, damn it,” I tell him.
He grins. “I’m just making sure nothing is going to interrupt us.”
I bite back my smile, debating whether to tell him about my role in the events of the evening. But he closes the gap between our lips, bringing me into another one of the purest and most perfect redos of my life. Maybe I’ll save it for him as a bedtime story.
Chapter 22
PRESENT DAY
My arm flops to the side against a cold, empty part of the mattress. The morning after euphoric bliss turns into deep heated dread as I pry open my eyes to a familiar scene.
I’m alone.
Again.
I grimace at the pillow still imprinted with Alec’s head shape, swing my arm up, and give it a good solid punch. If he expects me to call or text after this, he’s got another thing coming. His ass better be getting me breakfast or leaving me a cute note that starts a scavenger hunt that ends with roses or something equally romantic and thoughtful.
I huff at the ceiling, refusing to look at my phone as it buzzes on the nightstand. He’s getting the silent treatment until we’re face-to-face. After the epic lovemaking that topped our first night together, I deserve an in-person explanation.
A frustrated growl rips through my throat, and I slam both of my fists into the mattress and shout, “Damn him!” It’s then that I feel the bed shake, and it’s not me causing it.
I sit up, glancing over the side of the bed. Alec’s lips turn up in an adorable sleepy smile, and he stretches his very naked body.
“Good morning, grumpy.”
My eyebrows pull together. “What the hell are you doing on the floor? If you’re pulling a joke, it’s not funny. Jackass.”
He laughs, his smile so big and wide that it sends waves of joy through my heart. “You were having a pretty wild dream last night. I needed space if I was ever going to get some sleep.”
“I didn’t have a nightmare,” I say, shaking my head. I don’t always remember my night terrors, but I almost never wake up in the same spot I fell asleep in. Since I’m still cozied up in the sheets we tangled ourselves into last night, I’m assuming I kept the thrashing and sleepwalking to a minimum.
“I didn’t say nightmare.” He grins. “I said a wild dream. I had flashbacks to when the neighbor’s dog had a thing for my leg.”
I let out a faux gasp, flopping across the mattress to hover over him. “And you ran away? Didn’t want to take advantage of it?”
“Needed energy.”
“For what?” I lilt. He reaches up and slides me off the bed, strong arms keeping me from crashing too hard on top of him. His hand pushes into my hair, gripping tight and sending wave after wave of goose bumps up and down my neck.
“I want a redo,” he says against my mouth. “I want to show you what I’ve always pictured our morning after would be like.”
“Mm,” I moan, halfway between teasing him and just letting him have his way with me. “Does it include breakfast?”
“It does.”
“Then take your redo.”
He presses a quick kiss to my waiting lips, then rolls me around as I squeal with gl
ee.
“God, I love being under you,” I say, grasping his yummy arms. This is my haven.
“Really?” he teases. “I couldn’t tell.”
He playfully bites my bottom lip, then nuzzles my nose. His hair tickles my forehead, and I erupt in uncontrollable giggles. I’d thought that last night, or even the time before that, was everything. But this…our friendship blossoming into more…this is everything.
He plants silly kisses across my forehead, over my cheeks, down my neck and chest. I arch into him, primed for more loving and warmth and bliss, but his arm wraps around my waist and pulls me up against him as he rests back on his knees.
My phone’s going off, and we both ignore it, ignore our morning breath and the sun hitting us in the eyes and the tangles in my very sex-crazed hair. I love being imperfect with him.
His phone starts ringing, and we both laugh between our kisses.
“It’s Liz,” I tell him, our lips touching.
“You sure it’s not Liz on Landon’s phone?” he teases. Last night, as we lay together after another ride to heaven and back and I traced patterns across his chest while he teased me for crying again—I’m going to have to Google that strange phenomenon—I confessed all my shenanigans of that night to him, from the coughing bush to the basketball-induced nosebleed. I think I embarrassed him a little, but he was mighty forgiving.
Our phones are so relentless in their buzzing I can practically hear Liz yelling at me to answer. I’m hoping to high heaven there’s a pregnancy announcement on the line.
“Two…seconds…,” I say between kisses, reaching back and fumbling around for my cell. Alec’s hand slides down my ribs and I stretch across the bed, his fingers dropping to my hip.
Four missed calls and three texts, all saying, ANSWER YOUR PHONE DAMN IT! I laugh and shake my head as I dial Liz’s number.
“Is this the necklace?” Alec asks, the pad of his thumb tickling my skin. I look over my shoulder and give him a nod and a playful grin, and his eyes drop to the tattoo. “I noticed the new ink, but it was too dark to tell what it was.”
I put the phone to my ear and twist around on the bed as he crawls over me. “I won’t lose this one,” I tell him before he drops a kiss to my lips, then works his way across my neck. I don’t even register the ringing in my ear until Liz answers.
“We have pink!” she screams, and I pull the phone away so I don’t damage my eardrum. Alec is now making a downward path with his lips, the weight of his naked body warming me from the inside out. I tap him gently on the head and mouth, “Liz is pregnant.” His mouth turns up in a dimpled smile and he kisses my stomach one more time before reaching for his own phone. I see Landon’s face on the screen before I settle my cell back up to my ear.
We celebrate with our best friends about the news, Liz crying and Landon apparently so ecstatic that he’s already bought a crib and sent it to their place in L.A. Alec’s fingers trail over my legs as we lie in bed next to each other, his head resting at the bottom of the bed while mine is pressed into the fluffy pillows, and we listen to our separate conversations about the same thing. Liz keeps prodding me about what happened after she left me last night, but pretty soon they both figure out that Alec and I are in the same room at seven in the morning, and once they put it all together, they are quick to end the phone call, but not before Liz sets up a date for me and her and Shay so that I can deliver details. I wonder if they’ll know why I cry after orgasm with him.
“So…” Alec says, sliding his thumb across the red hang-up button while I do the same. “Did they kill the mood?”
I set my phone on his nightstand, knocking over an empty water bottle. “Completely,” I lie.
“Yeah, for me too,” he jokes back. I throw a pointed look at his tent pole. He twists to try to hide it, but it only ends up poking me in the ribs. It hurts a little; I think I may have bruised myself on that fire escape.
“Do you think they worked it out?” I ask him, interrupting the seductive plan I could see forming behind his eyes. “Rian and Jackson, I mean.”
He lifts a shoulder and presses a kiss to my ankle. “If they didn’t last night, I imagine they will in the future.”
“You think?” I ask, my voice coming out a little raspy and distant now that his hands are starting to roam over my skin. My attention is definitely moving away from the topic of Rian and Jackson.
“After last night, I think I’m willing to bet on anyone who loves someone that much.”
I let out a small laugh. “You mean so much that they try to sabotage any chance either of them has with someone else?”
His lips turn up as he rises and sits me up with him. The hand on my hip squeezes with gentle pressure, sending a flock of Cupid’s arrows through my stomach. “I actually meant Rian’s part of things. When you love someone so much that being with anyone else feels forced, unnatural, no matter how much time has passed.”
I rest my head against his. “No offense, but I think I did the more unbelievable things last night in the name of love.”
“This isn’t a competition.” He grins.
“But if it was, I’d win.”
He shakes his head against mine, and we bask in the sweet afterglow of finally coming together and still being us. I’ve never had pillow talk before. At least not like this. I don’t want to leave this apartment, leave this room, leave this bed.
Alec starts humming “Love Changes Everything.”
His voice is so gorgeous I bring my fingers to his mouth, tracing his lips and the smile lines, and pressing into the dimple that creases his cheek. He pauses his song to give me a kiss that is too quick for my taste.
“I want to see you wet,” he says, and I raise a playful eyebrow, which he laughs at. “I mean wet as in shower wet. That night I told you I loved you? It was raining. I…liked the view.”
“Is that what you had in mind for our redo this morning?”
He nods. “Shower, breakfast, making you play the piano for me…”
“Hmm,” I murmur, taking his earlobe between my teeth. His hot, ragged breath hits my collarbone. “That sounds like a much better morning after than waking up alone.”
I meant to keep our foreplay playful, but Alec’s lips are making it hard to be anything but passionate as he roams my shoulders. He’s holding me as if he’s terrified I’ll disappear into a wisp of fog, as if I may not be entirely real. Kissing me as if he’s trying to memorize my taste, inhaling my scent and reveling in my body so much so that I lose whatever sense I may have had and start holding and kissing and smelling him in the same way.
“I may have said this already,” he growls into my neck, “but I just don’t believe it.”
“Hmm?”
His hands cup my face and bring it down so our foreheads touch.
“Do you have any idea how many times I thought of you when I was in here? How many times I pretended I wasn’t alone, but holding you like this? Laughing with you, kissing your smile, touching every inch of your body as if I was worthy of doing so. You’ve just…I mean, hell, you’ve made my dream come true. And I just don’t believe it.”
My hands find his sides and slip up his warm back. “You keep talking like that and kissing me like this, there is no way we’re going to make it to the shower.”
His lips turn up into a seductive, playful, gorgeous Alec smile, and his hand finds the crook of my knee as he coaxes me onto my back.
“I can see you wet later.”
I release a very girly giggle, trailing my fingers down his chest and his abdomen, smiling like a damn fool at the perfection of his body. Morning is a good time for Alec’s nakedness. The sun sheds a flattering light on the veins and taut muscles that cover every inch, and I revel in the fact that he’s mine. That he kept his heart safe for me. Me. He said he couldn’t believe it; well, I’m the one who is dipped in unbelief.
His lips drop to mine, kissing me slowly at first, then faster as he quickens his pace. I find myself falling away from my su
rroundings, and I’m taking Alec with me. I don’t think I’ll ever have to call for another redo as long as I live.
Epilogue
ALEC
The front door of my apartment building opens, sending a brisk chill across the room and making me shiver. I don’t normally get the mail in only my undershirt and boxers, but I also don’t normally lack the energy to put on clothes when I know that once I get back to my place they won’t be on for very long.
My neighbor from 3F smirks at me as I wave with the hand that’s gripping my mail. When he takes the elevator, I bound up the stairs, determined to get there before he does.
When I get to my floor, soft music is floating down the hall. The sound has me racing to my apartment.
My girl’s playing the piano.
Theresa startles a little when I open the door, but it doesn’t affect the melody she starts adding into the song. She’s not using sheet music, not that she needs to, and she’s playing with only a blanket wrapped around her waist. The sight and sound mixed together makes my mouth run dry, and I miss the counter completely as I drop the handful of mail.
“You do love me,” I say in a hushed, reverent tone. She smiles before turning her attention back to the keyboard and tumbling her talented fingers into a glissando.
I cross the room, taking the spot next to her near the bass end. She told me that her favorite spot is underneath me; well, mine is right here.
“I did say I’d play for you if you did the auction for me,” she says, leaning in to tap her forehead against mine. Her fingers don’t break from the notes once, and I shake my head, in total awe at how second-nature this talent is for her.
I don’t want her to stop, but I can’t help but touch her wrist, feel the tendons as she works the music. My lips find her bare shoulder, grazing over her skin and causing her to play an imperfect note, her first.