Page 23 of Maybe This Time
It was probably masochistic of me to have kept it all this time, but for some odd reasons, holding onto the piece where I’d poured my heart to her felt like havingherwith me.
Hesitation flickered in her gaze before she took it from me. The soft crackle of old paper filled the silence as she unfolded it.
My breath caught in my throat as I watched her eyes skim over the page. As she read the words I’d written alone in my kitchen under a full moon. Pouring my feelings out to her had always felt like the scariest thing to do, but that night, it flowed out of me with ease. Telling Talya I loved her had never been the issue. It was the fear of losing her that had held me back.
When she reached the end, she looked up at me with glassy eyes.
“Do you… still feel the same?” she asked, her voice barely audible.
I cupped her face in both hands, my thumbs brushing along her cheeks. “Every word. I meant it then, and I mean it now. I love you, Talya Morrone. I never stopped. I never could and I never will be able to.”
Something cracked open in her expression, and a trembling smile bloomed on her face.
“You know,” she murmured, a lone tear rolling down her cheek. “I used to wish for you on every birthday.”
A soft laugh escaped me as I pressed my forehead to hers. “Now you’re stuck with me,” I told her, my lips curving into a smile against hers. “Forever. Happy birthday, Taly-Belly.”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” she replied and then both of us were laughing like love-drunk idiots, our mouths bumping together as we kissed our way through it.
They usually said that whatever happened at Mystique stayed at Mystique, but I’d carry tonight with me for the rest of my life and this time, there was no letting her go.
EPILOGUE
EZRA
SIX MONTHS LATER
Nervous energy prickledat my skin—and it wasn’t because T’s Sweets was finally opening its door in two days after months of being elbow-deep in construction.
“Ezra, you wonderful asshole,” Josie shrieked through the screen, tears streaming down her cheeks. She mumbled something in Italian to someone off-camera before she started moving. I heard a door click shut before she focused her attention back to her phone screen. “I’m in the middle of a shoot! You could have given a girl a warning.”
I chuckled, her reaction immediately lifting the boulder that had been weighing on me. That was exactly why I’d called her. Well, that and the fact that Josie would have never forgiven me if I hadn’t told her beforehand.
“You know your sister uses my phone all the time,” I deadpanned with a grin. “If she saw I texted you before calling, she’d know something was up.”
“Whatever,” she muttered, rolling her eyes as she dabbed her cheeks with a tissue. “Now shut up and show me. I want to see the goods.”
I obliged, flipping the camera to reveal the ring—an emerald cut moss agate gemstone set in the center of a dainty gold band, delicate leaves carved into it.
I’d finally received it last week after Jude stormed intoL’Infinitéand all but demanded the delivery to be expedited, fed up with seeing my impatience to finally spend the rest of my life with my favorite person in the world.
If it had been anyone else, the owners probably would have cussed at him, but they’d fallen in love with Jude from the moment they’d met him after he’d agreed to partner with the Parisian family-owned jewelry company for their official launch.
I’d originally planned to keep the proposal a secret, but not tellinganyonehad proven much harder than I’d anticipated. So, during one of our weekly video chats—chats Jude had insisted we have after I’d told him I was moving back to Boston six months ago (because, according to him, I owed him that much after “abandoning him in Paris”)—I’d blurted it out.
I’d instantly regretted it. Vega was notoriously terrible at keeping secrets or even worse at lying. But to my surprise, he’d been incredibly helpful in making sure the jeweler captured my vision since I couldn’t fly to Paris without raising suspicions from my girlfriend.
Girlfriend. I still couldn’t believe I got to call Talya mine and soon, she’d bemywife. But I’d always known I’d spend the rest of my life with her. It had just been a matter of her catching on. Well, as I’d learned six months ago, she’d always thought so too. I’d just been too much of an idiot to confess how I felt about her.
My gaze drifted to the corkboard next to my desk, where a handful of polaroids were pinned. One showed Talya during our first official date at the Harvest Festival. She’d been laser-focused on picking the perfect apples for a recipe I’d been testing, and the moment had been so perfectly her, I had to immortalize it. Another photo was from Christmas last year, the people we loved the most around us, our eyes stuck to each other. My mother had taken it without us knowing and gifted it to me later that night.
It had been the first time we’d beenusaround our families and despite how nerve-wracking it had felt, everyone had been more relieved that it was finally happening.
At first, I’d carried a lot of shame and regret for all the time Talya and I lost dancing around each other, too afraid to take the leap. But the unforgettable week we’d spent together after that night at Mystique had dulled it until it eventually went away.
I had the rest of our lives to look forward to and we’d make the most of it.
“Ezra,” Josie said, sniffling. “It’s so beautiful. She’s going to love it.”
