Page 114 of Snowed Inn

My eyes sting, and I shake my head. “No. I don’t deserve that.” Then I wrinkle up my nose. “So? No girlfriend?”

“No. I kinda screwed things up with the last woman I really liked.” Jesse lets out a slow breath, eyes searching mine. “Look. I’m not great at this relationship stuff. I never have been. But—”

“No. Wait. I—I need to say something else. . . . Something I should have said months ago. I’m sorry,” I blurt, my voice cracking. My eyes sting and I blink hard, willing myself not to cry. Not yet at least. I grip the edge of the booth for balance, like it might keep me from emotionally face-planting. “I handled everything wrong the day I left for LA. I didn’t listen. I didn’t give you a chance to say anything. I jumped to conclusions and acted like a complete jerk. I told myself I was protecting my heart, but the truth is, I was just scared. And you were right. About all of it.”

Jesse stays quiet, watching me.

I take a deep breath and continue. “You say you aren’t good at this relationship stuff. Well, I’m worse.” I laugh weakly. “I flew across the country just to avoid admitting I was in love with you.”

His breath catches—just a small hitch, but I hear it.

I press on. My next laugh cracks on the way out. My throat is raw with unsaid words, all the ones I’ve buried since December. “You make me crazy. You’re infuriating and stubborn and you insist upon wearing ball caps.” I wipe at my eye. “But you’re also steady. And kind. And thoughtful. And smart. And wonderful.”

My voice shakes again. “You’re eighty percent amazing and twenty percent maddening—but I’ll take the eighty any day.”

He exhales. His face softens, the tension in his shoulders easing, like he’s been holding that breath for weeks. Months, maybe.

But I’m not done. Not yet.

I take a shaky breath. Because this is the part I’ve been practicing for weeks now. “You told me once that you’re the rebound guy, the practice guy, the guy girls like me always leave.”

He nods, but his throat bobs as he swallows.

“But you’re wrong,” I continue, staring straight into his heavenly blue eyes. “You’re not that guy. You’re the guy the right girl stays for. You’re the guy the right girl comes back to and begs to give her a second chance because she was an idiot for ever leaving in the first place. And you’re the guy”—my eyes are fully filled with tears now, but I don’t care—“who teaches the girl like me that there was a guy worth staying for all along. And she was just looking in the wrong places.”

“Maria,” he says, his voice rough, “I never thought I was good enough for you.”

My heart twists. “No, I—”

He gently squeezes my hands. “Let me finish.”

I nod.

He takes another breath. His thumb grazes the inside of my wrist, and it sends a jolt of tenderness straight to my rib cage. His eyes are open, searching, vulnerable. “I grew up thinking people like you were part of a different world—one I’d never belong to. And then you walked into my bar like you owned the place, and I couldn’t stop thinking about you. But I figured eventually you’d wake up and figure out I wasn’t worth it. The day you went to Los Angeles, I figured you woke up.”

I blink back more tears. I am shaking my head fiercely, but I force myself to remain silent. He has more to say.

“But after you left,” he continues, “all I could think about was how wrong I’d been about you from day one. Because not only were you not a princess, somehow, you were the one who believed in me. You pushed me to go ahead with this bar. You challenged me and inspired me and helped me fix things with Carrie. You completely flipped my life upside down.”

He leans forward, eyes locked on mine. “You saw where I came from and you didn’t flinch.”

I swallow hard. My chest aches. My voice trembles, but I let it. I’ve held this in too long. “I love you, Jesse.”

He presses his forehead to mine. “I love you too, Maria. And I want to build something with you. Something real. So I’m asking . . . will you stay?”

The world stills. My whole body leans toward him like a compass needle snapping north. Every doubt, every regret, melts away, along with the bar noise that fades to a dull hum.

And everything in me says yes.

I nod slowly, smile trembling. “Yes,” I whisper. “We’ll figure it out. And I mean it this time.”

Jesse lets out a long breath, then reaches across the seat and pulls me into his arms.

And when he kisses me—everything, finally, clicks into place.

I lean back just enough to whisper, “Wait—before we forget, I need to take your ‘after’ picture.”

Jesse laughs. “You remembered that?”