Page 65 of This Love
“The wind whipping your hair,” I said.
“The smell of dust and green.”
I elbowed him. “Green doesn’t have a smell.”
“Doesn’t it?”
I sniffed. “Okay, maybe it does.”
When I felt I had taken all the shots I could, we jumped down. This time, when we returned to the stone wall, it was empty. I photographed more of the view, zooming in on the details I’d missed. A small boat motoring along the surface of the lake. A bird nest almost hidden in the branches of a tree below.
We wandered down a broad path of gravel and dirt, with boulders bordering the edge.
Here, there was no wall or brush to keep you from tumbling over the edge. My fear spiked, but I pushed it back down. I knew how to be careful. I didn’t have to be afraid.
“Where does this path go?” I asked.
“Back to the road where we parked,” Tucker said.
“You mean we didn’t have to walk up all those stairs?”
He laughed. “One time we came up here, we took the path, and you complained that the stairs would have been faster.”
“I guess you can’t win.”
He took my hand. “Coming here with you is always a win.”
We spotted a big flat boulder and sat down, looking over a new portion of the lake. “I love this city,” Tucker said. “I’m glad this is where I was born.”
“Me, too,” I said. “I’m glad Dad didn’t take me away to Houston. That city has its good points, but it mostly smells like car exhaust.”
Tucker grinned and squeezed my fingers. “I love how you describe things.”
I sighed. “I still talk a little weird. Sometimes I don’t catch it until after I hear my own words.”
He lifted my hand to kiss the back of it. “It’s perfect. And I don’t think I’ve said it in a while because it seemed like you didn’t want to hear it, but I love you, Ava. I didn’t stop loving you at any point in all this.”
His soft gaze was already familiar. I’d captured this expression on him a hundred times. Based on the sheer volume of the printed images, it was always my favorite.
I leaned over to bump his shoulder. “I think I love you, too, as much as I can tell what love is. Cosmopolitan isn’t a very good source for relationship advice, it turns out.”
He laughed at that. “It’s fun to read, though.”
“Movies aren’t good either,” I said. “It’s like they meet, they montage through a bunch of dates, and then, bam, they’re in love.”
“I think David and Patrick are a good example,” he said. “They took their time. They had problems. They had great moments.”
“Like when David sang to him.”
“Just like that.”
“But remember when Alexis and Ted had to say goodbye? That was so painful.”
He wrapped my hand in both of his. “We won’t ever have to do that. I will go wherever you go.”
“But you’re in school! You have a job.”
He shook his head. “Those things don’t matter.”
