Page 116 of If the Stars Align
He nods. “I had it all planned out. A final grand gesture to win you back. It was going to be very dramatic,” he says, kissingme again. “But I like this ending a lot better.”
“This isn’t the end. It’s only the beginning,” I remind him, repeating the words he said to me under the stars, the last time we went camping.
With one arm wrapped around my waist, Dex threads the other under my knees and scoops me up.
“Where are we going?” I ask with a smile.
“I’m taking you home,” he says. “Well, to my parents’ home.”
“Where are they, by the way?”
“Visiting my Aunt Jane and Uncle Rich in Maryland. They won’t be back for a week. I’m sure you and I will bereallybusy making up for lost time…but at some point we’ll have to call and tell them we’re back together. I think they’ve been waiting for this day as long as I have.”
“Did they know about your plan to derail my wedding?” I ask with a smile.
Dex laughs. “Are you kidding? It was practically their idea.”
I heave a deep sigh. “I love them so much. And I love you.”
“I adore you, Sunny.”
After he pauses to grab my purse from the porch swing, the man I’ve always loved carries me across the threshold of the home I’ve always loved. He kicks the door shut behind us, then takes me upstairs to his bed, where we kiss each other endlessly, like teenagers again.
When we pause to take a breath, I sweep my thumb across his cheek.
Oliver Dexter smiles at me. “They’re happy tears.”
Ihaven’t been back to Beachwood High School since I graduated twelve years ago.
There was a ten-year reunion party here in the fall of 2008, but it was the same weekend Dex and I moved to Chicago. Before we left, on our last night in Beachwood, we went camping at our favorite childhood spot—and he proposed to me under a starlit sky. He gave me his maternal grandmother’s ring, which he’d only just found out his mom had been saving for me for years.
Apparently Dex’s cousin Ben had asked for it nearly a decade earlier, and it caused a minor squabble between Mrs. Dexter and her brother Ted. Finally, she convinced him the ring was meant for me. There’s no denying it…with its yellow gold band and round center stone surrounded by an array of diamonds, you can’t look at it without seeing a bright, shining sun.
Mrs. Dexter always believed her son would give me that ring one day.
She was right.
While I took classes toward my MFA at Northwestern, Dex developed a pilot program, using the dramatic arts as a tool to help kids with anxiety. He named it the Dramatic Hearts Academy, and last year they had a successful launch at a school on Chicago’s North Side. Now he’s working to expand the program across the country.
Even though he hasn’t made a movie in over two years, he’s still famous as ever. But now it’s as the face of a nationwide campaign to break the stigma of mental illness. In addition to working with kids, he’s already booked a year out for speaking engagements. His Ted Talk got so much online traffic, it nearly broke the Internet.
Now that I’ve graduated and we’re back in Beachwood permanently, Dex will be working with kids at our high school. To drum up excitement for the initiative, he offered the students in his Chicago pilot program an all-expenses-paid vacation to exciting Beachwood, Ohio—in exchange for performing their show.
It’s the opening night of a three-day run, and literally everyone and their mother is here. Including mine, of course, with Luis by her side. Last year, after much good-humored prodding from her husband, she joined him in retirement. It was a bumpy beginning for my former-workaholic mother, but she’s come to love it. In addition to traveling with Luis, she enjoys swimming, gardening—and readingromancenovels, of all things. Turns out she found an old stash I’d hidden in my closet and couldn’t resist the temptation.
“Hello, my sweethearts,” she says, wrapping her arms around both me and Dex. We’re standing at the door to the auditoriumgreeting guests, and there’s a line of people a mile long, eyeingtheDex Oliver and waiting for their chance to meet him.
“Hey, Mom,” Dex says, winking at her.
I stillcan’t believe they’re this close.
Last summer, Dex and I got married in the Dexters’ backyard, like I always dreamed. With our family and friends—and a handful of A-list celebrities. My mom was positively beaming when she walked me down the aisle.
As soon as Dex and I got back together, she took it upon herself to write him a long letter of apology. And Dex, being the most empathetic and compassionate person I know, accepted it readily.
Needless to say, my mom and I get along better than ever. Between writing letters to Dex and reading romance novels, she and I have a lot more in common than I thought possible.
After she and Luis enter the auditorium to take their seats, we greet Mr. and Mrs. Dexter.
