Page 105 of Winging It with You

Or how he has consistently reached over in the middle of the night to hold my hand, and in those moments, I never feel more content.

“What I’mtryingto say is that everything about you has been one giant surprise after another.”

He allows a few moments before responding, the silence between us accented by the chirps of a nearby cricket. “In a good way?”

“The best way.” I can feel him exhale next to me, and knowing my words are a relief to him makes my heart ache. “Theo, meeting you changed my life.”

Removing his hand from my thigh, he puts an arm around me now. “I was hoping you’d feel that way.”

Turning to him, I gently plant a kiss on his jaw. “My life is infinitely better because you came into it.” I think back to everything that has happened since our paths crossed at the airport, and it’s hard not to believe fate brought this man into my life when I needed him most.

“We really have been through it,” he says, his lips pressed to my temple. It feels like an understatement, all things considered. “So…now what?”

“Now, we go back to our lives,” I say, slowly kicking my feet back and forth in the cool water. “No more cameras and living out of our suitcases. No more nonsense with Bianca and Jackson or having to put up with Dalton McKnight…”

“And us?” he asks, interrupting me.

The fact that he wants anusis more than I could ever ask for.

“Us?” I repeat, turning to face him. Reaching up. I placeboth of my hands on his face and stare deep into his eyes—eyes that are radiating concern for a future neither one of us has really talked about before. “We can do anything we want, but I don’t care what we do, Theo…” He cocks an eyebrow at me, which only makes me smile. “As long as my mornings start wrapped tightly in your arms and my nights end with your hand in mine, I’ll be a happy man.” And it’s true—if I’ve learned anything the past few weeks, it’s that I require far less than I thought to make me happy. Really and truly happy. And Theo just might be at the center of it all.

But who knows. Maybe all this was never about him.

Or us, even.

Maybe sitting here with this magnetic force of a man was never meant to be my destination. Instead, the whole point of him and us and the undeniable way he makes me feel is that I needed to come apart. Seam by narrowly held-together seam, rough edges and all. Maybe I needed a moment of unbecoming to shake loose everything I’ve been carrying all these years. Shedding bits and pieces of who I thought I was supposed to be in order to find myself again.

To love myself again.

And Theo? I think the hands of fate were onto something weaving his life into mine like this. Not as some prize to be won, but as someone to share the journey with, together.

“It’s that simple, huh?” he asks, the smallest smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

“You and I have been gallivanting all over the world these last few weeks, doing thingswell outsideboth of our comfort zones. Doesn’tsimplesound pretty amazing right about now?”

Theo shakes his head, the smile he’s been holding back finally making its reappearance. He places his full lips to mine,and as the crickets carry out their joyous tune and the soft breeze coming off the lake dances on our skin, I am left in awe at the lack of urgency to his kiss.

Because now, maybe for the first time ever, it’s not lost on either of us that we have all the time in the world to figure out what comes next.

“Simple sounds more than perfect, actually,” Theo says, and I couldn’t agree more.

/////////////

Theo and I FaceTime withJenn and Ellie in bed on our last morning. Their faces smooshed together on the screen, hair wild and eyes still in disbelief that they’d actually won. We pass along our infinite congratulations and make promises to see one another soon, especially since Ellie will be heading off to college next year. My heart swells with the knowledge she’ll now have the means to go to whatever school she gets into, and while she grimaced when I tried to sell her on different biomedical engineering programs, I’ll be cheering her on as loudly as I can regardless.

After waving a tearful goodbye to Theo’s family, who make me promise many times that I’ll be back soon, I hop in the car, where Theo is waiting, his head down but a soft smile on his face.

Driving to the airport together feels different this time.

He holds my hand, alternating tracing tiny circles and hearts with his thumb over my knuckles like he did all those times on the show. Without even having to look at him, I have a pretty good idea that he’s feeling what I am.

Sadness that our time on the lake has come to an end.

When we arrive, I learn my flight back to Boston has beendelayed, so there is still some time for us to linger outside the terminal. Theo leans against his parents’ sedan, and I stand fidgeting with my bag’s strap again, trying and failing to string together a sentence to articulate exactly how I feel.

How much he means to me.

How much I need him.

---