Her hand immediately came up to cover the pin, pure love blazing in her eyes. “Bowen, I—”
“You don’t have to say anything. I don’t need a response. It was a statement, not a question or conversation starter. I don’t want my last night with you to be about the hard stuff. We’ve had enough of that to last ten lifetimes. You love me. I love you. Let’s party and ignore the rest.”
She stared at me, a million words hanging in the air between us.
I didn’t give any of them time to linger. I kissed her, slow and deep. My hands glided around her waist, hers around my neck. I pulled her as close to my body as space would allow, wishing I could absorb her.
But not all space was bad. We had a lot of truly amazing things to be grateful for. Maybe I was the one who had lost sight of myself in the search. We were both alive. Healthy. Living on the same plane of time. Existing under the same stars. In a world that measured over four billion years old, that in and of itself was a miracle. And no matter what happened after that night, I was a better man for it.
Remi and I spent hours on the empty dance floor, making utter fools of ourselves during the fast songs and then swaying and staring into each other’s eyes during the monster ballads. We had too many drinks. Stumbled back to our hotel and ate two-a.m. room service. Gave the bathtub another shot before abandoning water sex forever. And finally, we lay in bed, our bodies tangled together, talking and laughing until she eventually fell asleep midsentence.
It wasn’t enough. It would never be enough.
But I fell asleep with a smile because I’d had her at all.
Remi Grey, elusive as ever, was gone when I woke up the next morning.
Remi
“Hey,” I cooed, catching Sugar as he darted from between Jenna’s feet when she opened her apartment door. I plucked him off the ground and hugged him to my chest. “Did you miss me, buddy?”
He wiggled and whimpered in my arms like he hadn’t seen me for a year.
Jenna glared at him. “Don’t let that little faker fool you. We had a blast.”
I stepped forward and pulled her into a side hug. “Thanks again for keeping him. All your shoes make it through the week?”
She laughed and leaned her tattooed shoulder against the doorjamb. “They did. We went on walks, picked up a few cute guys at the dog park. Me. Not Sugs. His eyes were on the ladies. We did almost get kicked out because he kept humping this little girl’s Yorkie. But besides that, it was all snuggles, pets, and treats. What about you? How’d the conference go?”
My stomach pitched.
I offered her a sad smile. “Amazing. Orgasmic. Metamorphic.”
“A real estate conference? Really?”
I chuckled. “Yeah. My ex was there.”
“Bowen?” she gasped.
While I hadn’t told Jenna everything about my past—because, after all, that would have defeated the purpose of the whole fresh start thing I had been aiming for—we’d had plenty of late-night heart-to-hearts. I’d told her about the plane crash, my memory loss, and the man who’d betrayed me. I was pretty sure she assumed Bowen had cheated on me, but whatever. Assumptions were easier to digest than reality in our case.
On those nights, Jenna had done her fair share of spilling the beans too. She’d told me about her parents, who’d kicked her out at sixteen, and her ex-boyfriend who had left her for another woman. It was nice to have someone to commiserate with.
But even if she didn’t have the whole story of my past with Bowen, the look on her face told me she understood exactly how big of a deal it was for me to have run into him again.
“That’s the one,” I answered.
“Please tell me you kicked him in the balls.”
“No. But I did do some other things to him in that general vicinity. I’m sure it taught him a good lesson.”
She blinked rapidly. “Oooooo-kay.” She motioned for me to come inside. “Get in here. I need to know all the deets. I’ll whip up some lunchtime mimosas.”
“Don’t you have to work tonight?”
She made the eek face. “I’m currently between positions.”
I squinted knowingly. “You got fired for sleeping with the boss’s son?”
“Actually, no. I got fired for throwing a drink at the boss’s son and telling him to go fuck himself in the middle of a shift. Mimosas and I’ll spill all my juicy gossip too.”
I yawned, exhaustion almost as all-consuming as the longing. “I can’t. I’ve been in the car all morning, and I barely got any sleep last night. I have a million emails to catch up on and an entire lecture about why I don’t need a man to give myself in the mirror.” My nose began to sting, but I’d promised myself no more tears after I’d ugly-cried for the first hour of my drive home.
