Page 128 of At the Heart of It
She smiled and stepped into his embrace. As she looked up at him, his lips found hers. She kissed him back, soft and deep and exactly the way she remembered.
When she broke the kiss, she looked up at him with tears in her eyes.
“I love you, too, Jonah. So much.”
“Damn right you do.”
Then he was kissing her again, and Kate slid her hands up his arms, gripping his shoulders and clutching him like her life depended on it.
When they finally came up for air, Kate saw a flicker of movement. She peered over Jonah’s shoulder to see Pete at the edge of the house, his camera perched on one shoulder.
A bubble of anger swelled in her chest. “Pete,” she warned. “I need you to stop filming right now?—”
“It’s okay,” Jonah said. “I asked him to.”
“But—why?”
He grinned and slid his arms around her, pressing the heels of his hands into the small of her back. His eyes locked with hers, and he leaned close so only she could hear the words.
“Because,” he said. “When we’re old and gray and sitting in our nursing home together, I want to watch this moment again. I want to tell everyone—the nurses, the orderlies, the guy who shows up to change my diaper—that this is where it all started.”
Epilogue
“How soon do you think we’ll see them?”
Jonah glanced over to see Kate squinting at the finish line. She wore a black cotton sundress that reminded him of the one she’d worn the first time they met. Fondness flowed through him, as familiar as his own pulse.
“Relax,” he said, sliding an arm around her. “We’ve got another ten minutes at least.”
Kate tilted her sunglasses up on her head and smiled up at him, giving him a flash of those toffee-colored eyes that had been melting him for almost a year now. “Bike racing is kind of a tough sport to watch,” she said.
“It’s not a race, exactly,” he pointed out. “Just a fun ride. We’re easing in slowly, remember?”
We meaning Jossy and her new knee. He and Kate weren’t taking things all that slowly anymore. They’d moved in together four weeks ago, with Kate still commuting to LA a few times a month. For the most part, she spent her time in Seattle, where they’d just started filming the second season of Relationship Reboot with Dr. Viv.
Season one was currently the most-watched show in its time slot, with a primetime Emmy nod for Outstanding Unstructured Reality Program. Even Chase Whitfield had grudgingly admitted they’d made the right call keeping cast and crew intact.
Kate peered back at the bike course while Jonah admired the sun-slashed glints of mahogany in her hair. “Before I forget,” she said, “I invited Pete and Viv over as soon as we finish unpacking all the boxes.”
“Given how many boxes it took to hold all your stuff, that’ll be somewhere around the time their baby enters kindergarten.”
Kate gasped and looked up at him. “Are you serious? They’re pregnant?”
He laughed and planted a kiss on her forehead. “Not yet, but isn’t it just a matter of time?”
“I know they’re trying,” she said, making Jonah do a little shudder. “What?”
“Trying,” he repeated, giving one more shudder for dramatic effect. “That phrase makes me think of them grunting and gyrating like farm animals.”
“Thank you for ruining the beauty of procreation and childbirth for me,” she said. “And the sweetness of that relationship.”
“I don’t think anything could ruin the sweetness of that relationship,” he pointed out. “The two of them together are like a teddy bear cuddling a jar of organic wildflower honey.”
“I’m just glad they’re happy.”
So was Jonah, honestly. Part of him had expected Viv’s second chance at love to come in the form of someone powerful or pretentious or sophisticated. Someone like Chase Whitfield, maybe. But in the end, it had happened with a guy who looked like the human equivalent of a hug.
Jonah could appreciate that.
