Page 116 of Fight For Me

“That’ll keep it from getting boring.”

He shakes his head, fighting a smile. “I mean it. I’m a grumpy old man sometimes.”

“I like your old man ways.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Really?”

“Really. I want to stay up late knitting with you and complain about kids and their electronica music and listen to piano concertos and walk George and—”

His lips on mine shut me up and I get lost in the kiss all over again. When he pulls away, we’re both breathless. “Your dad,” he says gravely.

“What about him?”

Wyatt’s eyes are sad. “He’s going to hate me forever.”

“He’ll come around.”

Wyatt shakes his head. “I don’t know, Alex. You didn’t see his face.”

I shrug. “He hated my last boyfriend, too, you know. He’s protective. That’s not unique to you.”

Wyatt scowls. “He’s right about that one. Your last boyfriend sucked.”

“You never met my last boyfriend.”

“I don’t need to meet him to know he sucked. Any guy who would give you up sucks.”

“You almost gave me up,” I whisper. I’m so happy to be back in his arms but it’s going to be a while before I’m fully over the sting of what happened last night.

His eyes darken. “I’m so sorry. I was really stupid. Afraid of all the wrong things.”

“And now?”

His gaze remains serious. “Now I’m just afraid that one of these days you’ll figure out how much better you could do.”

I narrow my eyes. “Then I’ll just have to prove to you that there’s no one better for me than you.”

“Yeah? How do you plan to prove that?”

I kiss him softly, heart so full I just might start crying. Again. “Time,” I manage to rasp out. “Lots and lots of time.”

His grin is as beautiful as the one that started my crush all those years ago. “Then we better get started.”

Epilogue

Wyatt

“What do you think?” I ask, slipping my arms around Alex and pulling her back into my chest.

“I like it.” She looks around the empty apartment. “The light is really good.” She taps her fingers against my forearm, thinking. “The other place was closer to the beach, though.”

“Not by much. And that place was only one bedroom. Here you could have an office.”

She turns in my arms and peers up at me. “I figured the second bedroom would be your music room.”

“I don’t need a whole music room. There’s space for an upright piano in the living room. That’s good enough for me. But you need to be able to spread out and have room to work on your prototypes.”

“Hmm,” she hums, the happy sound bringing a smile to my face. She turns back around, eyes wandering over the space. She was right about the light in here. This apartment has a lot of windows. I can picture the two of us eating breakfast in that little nook on the east side of the apartment. My California girl should start her days bathed in sunshine.