Page 148 of Love, Rekindled

“He would have called, yeah,” I agree. “Head on up, Mama.”

She kisses my cheek and makes her way to the steps. I hear Daddy watchingFamily Feud. Surely my father is the only one recording episodes ofthat show.

I make quick work of the dishes and fend off restlessness. I don’t want to bother Naz when he’s at the dinner. He said he’d call when he left to let me know how it went. As much for distraction as anything else, I climb the steps up to the roof. It seemed so much bigger when I was eighteen. It was the best place to come dream and hope. Now it feels smaller and, with all us kids gone and never using it, neglected. Out of forgotten habit, I check the storage bench and grab an old blanket, then spread it on the cement floor. It’s quiet up here, peaceful, and I wrap myself in memories—all the good times we had here as a family. Cliff was always on grill duty. I blink back tears as much for all that he lost as for how our conversation ended last week.

“Someone once told me the stars feel really close up here.”

I sit up on the blanket, turning my head toward the stairs leading back into the house.

“Naz.” I almost collapse with relief, glad to see him. Needing to hold him.

“Your mom let me up.”

He crosses the roof and settles down beside me, stretching out on the blanket and pulling me onto his lap. I cuddle into him, disrupting his neatly tucked shirt by slipping my hand under it and dragging my palm over his warm skin. He kisses my hair and squeezes me tighter.

“Go ahead and ask,” he says, his voice tinged with humor.

“How’d it go? With Cliff, I mean.”

“He apologized to me.”

I pull back, shock stretching my mouth open. “What? Cliff did?”

“Cliff did, and I’m sure you’ll have one coming your way, too. Apparently he went to group and got some perspective.”

The knot that’s been in my stomach since I landed yesterday slowly loosens. “He’s okay?”

“I think he’s stronger than you give him credit for.” Naz looks up at the stars, a small frown bending the thick line of his brows. “I think he’s stronger than he gives himself credit for, but yeah. He seemed to be in a better place. I told him that was good since he and I will probably be related someday.”

I go completely still in his arms, twisting to peer into his face with the light so dim.

“You saidwhat?” I gasp, clutching a handful of his shirt reflexively.

“Oh, he was fine with it.”

“What about if I’m fine with it? Maybe I’m not convinced you love me.”

He lies back on the blanket, taking me with him and pulling me up until we’re chest to chest and our faces are centimeters apart.

“I have ways of persuading you,” he says, nibbling the line of my throat, his hand wandering up over the rise of my hip.

“Hmmm. I remember the last time we were up on this roof, all the persuading you did. Is that what I should expect?”

As he looks into my eyes, the laughter fades from his expression.

“You should expect that when the time is right,” he says, his voice sure and fervent. “I’ll ask you to marry me and refuse to settle for anything but yes.”

The teasing smile dies on my lips as emotion warms my heart.

“You should expect that I’m going to spoil you and take care of you and remind you every day that I may not deserve you, but I’m never letting you go.”

Tears gather at the corners of my eyes, and I let them fall.

“That night right here,” he says, looking around the rooftop, “should have been our beginning, but instead everything went wrong. Everything in my life went right, except that. Except you.”

And it changed everything, he’s right. If Cliff had shown restraint, not punched that coach—if he hadn’t let his resentment eat away at him, hadn’t turned to drugs…his life could have been exactly as he’d envisioned. I could have avoided an army of frogs before I found my prince. But in the time apart from Naz, I grew into myself. Learned to accept my preferences, my desires. I learned to listen to my body and trust my instincts. I learned what a good friend is. I learned the difference between a good man and a bad one. What I was willing to accept and what I couldn’t do without. Those years made me. They made Naz. Maybe the same forces that pushed us apart when we were so young, so untried, delivered me literally into Naz’s arms when he was ready for me and I was ready for him.

“You know,” I say, huddling deeper into him, “this was where I came to dream. It was the place where I felt closest to the stars. Where they felt brightest. It’s where we first kissed.” I pause to caress the strong planes of his face. “I used to think this rooftop held some kind of magic.”

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