Page 100 of My Favorite Bad Decision
That was the hesitation I sensed, the uncertainty. She wasn’t unsure about whatshewanted. She was unsure about whatIwanted.
“Wait,” I demand. I go to my nightstand and withdraw a wooden box I bought in Tanzania, and then return to the kitchen to hand it to her. “I flew to Germany because I had a meeting there. I didn’t even see her. And the hair tie?” I place the box in her hand. “It was yours.”
“Mine? But I’d never been here before.”
“Open it, Kit,” I tell her softly, so she does.
Inside, she sees the hair tie—which I slipped off her head the day I was washing her hair and wore around my wrist for the rest of the trip. Alongside it, there’s the fortune she gave me at the Chinese restaurant, and the shell necklace she made me at Starfish Cay, and her boarding pass from the flight home.
All these meaningless little things I held onto solely because I was trying to keep a tiny piece of her if I couldn’t have them all.
Her eyes fill with tears. “I was worried you’d already moved on.”
My palms cradle her face. “I’ve been in love with you for a decade. You really think I wouldn’t wait two more weeks?”
I kiss her. Her soft lips open, and her tongue tastes like mint. I reach inside her coat to grab her hips tight, but she resists. “Miller…just so you have all the information up front, I’m pretty sure I want to go back to med school. I don’t know where I’ll be the next few years and?—”
I lift her up and set her on the counter, my favorite place for her.
“I just want to grow old with you, Kit Fischer,” I tell her. “And I’m going to follow you for as long as you let me.”
She bites her lower lip. “You’re moving awfully fast for a guy whose fear of commitment is legendary.”
“I was never scared of committing. I just didn’t want to commit to anyone but you,” I reply. “Now I simply need to get our families and the press together for a big, public proposal.”
She grins. “We only started officially dating thirty seconds ago.”
I tug her skirt up enough that I can push her legs apart and step between them.
“Have I ever told you my grandfather built a library to get me into school? When the Wests do things, we don’t go halfway.”
She laughs and presses her lips to mine. “Thank you for finally admitting that.”
30
KIT
JUNE
Everest Base Camp sits at 17,600 feet…only four hundred feet below the highest point we reached in Africa.
It’s where I’ve left Miller, after eight long days of climbing and acclimating to get there, and the real work—thedangerouswork—lies entirely ahead of him.
I left to pursue a challenge of my own, and I’m sick to my stomach about his and mine both.
My program is letting me come back …ifI can pass the finals I took at the end of my second year. I tried hard to convince them to let me wait until Miller was done in Nepal, but beggars can’t be choosers…if I want to prove I’m ready for year three, which will primarily be rotations, I’ve got to prove I still know what I did when I left. And I have to do it on their schedule, which means the timing couldn’t be worse—the same tests I was taking when Rob died at high altitude are the ones I’ll be taking while Miller endures far greater challenges.
“You look terrible,” Maren says when I walk into the trendy little restaurant she’s chosen in Battery Park.
I fan my face with a menu as I slide into the booth—it’s a million degrees today. “You try camping for eight days followed by nineteen-hour days of study.”
I’ve been working like a dog, and I just want it behind me so I can get back to Miller.
“That’s no excuse for that hair,” she says. “And those nails. Lord.”
“Okay,Ulrika,” I say.
She laughs. “Maybe I do sound a little like Mom, but don’t you want to look fucking fantastic when Miller sees you at base camp next weekend?”
