Total pages in book: 140
Estimated words: 137433 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 687(@200wpm)___ 550(@250wpm)___ 458(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 137433 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 687(@200wpm)___ 550(@250wpm)___ 458(@300wpm)
Andromeda follows soon after, landing on mine. We both smile at each other.
How could I ever question that we were meant to be? That we were endgame?
“I’m sorry I told you, you don’t have me.” Lev’s voice breaks. “I didn’t want you to rush through rehab. I didn’t want you to focus on anything other than getting better. I had to truly let you go in order for you to find your way back to yourself. I had to.”
He falls down to his knees in front of me, pressing his head against my midriff.
I instinctively gather his head in my arms. The texture of his buzzed hair feels different.
I can’t resist running a hand over it again and again, until it becomes familiar.
“I know.” Tears run down my cheeks. “I know you had to do that, and I want you to know that I appreciate it. I’m not angry. Just ashamed of everything I’ve put you through. Not just you. Everyone around me.”
He looks up from my belly button, his green eyes glittering with tears.
His arms are enfolded around my waist tightly. “Can I try this again?” he asks. “The love declaration? Same scenery. Same girl. Different year?”
I stroke his cheek lovingly. “I’m not the same girl,” I croak. “I’ll never be the same girl.”
He presses his cheek to my palm, closing his eyes. “You’re right. You’re even more lovable than her. With the scars to prove you’ve been through a hard-won battle.”
Drawing a deep breath, I nod. “Let’s try again.”
“Bailey Followhill, I’m in love with you. I don’t remember a time before being in love with you. And I can’t see my life without you. It was you before I was even born. It will be you long after I die. You are my beginning, my middle, and…well, the death of me, probably.” We both laugh. “So please, please.” He puts his palms together. “Please help me write our happily-ever-after. Fuck knows you’re so much better with words than I am.”
Lev reaches for his back pocket. I know he won’t pull out an engagement ring.
There’s a time and a place for everything, and we still need to experience so much more before we’re ready.
I want dates. Make-out sessions until our lips are swollen. I want days where we laugh together and days where we cry together and days where we’re just together, curled one inside the other, making love.
What he produces from his pocket makes my heart stop beating.
I gasp. “You fixed the bracelets. The strings are brand-new.”
“But the doves are the same. A constant. Just like us.”
“But Thalia…”
“Is gone from our lives. Forever.”
Perseus and Andromeda fly off. It would be the last time we saw them, and somehow—don’t ask me how—I felt it in my bones that it was their goodbye to us.
Rosie sent them to show us the way back to each other.
Now, they’re no longer needed.
EPILOGUE
Lev
Seven months later
“You going home this early, bro?” Bryan, my bunkmate, raises his eyebrows at me, like it isn’t eight thirty in the evening and I haven’t been on my feet since five.
Frowning at my watch, I swing my bag over my shoulder. “Gotta make it in time for a flight to Florida.”
First-year cadets get just about zero time off, and Bailey and I have been rocking the long-distance thing since we picked things up when she got back from rehab, so to say I’m in a hurry is putting it mildly.
I’ll only have a couple weeks with her, and I’ll have to spend the first one pretending to like her college roommate, Sienna, who is just a little less boring than plain toast with a nice layer of unsalted butter smeared on top.
The second week we’re spending in Jackson Hole with our families. And—thank fuck—sans prescription drugs.
Bryan rolls his eyes. “How do you have time for a girlfriend?”
The truth is, I don’t. One thing that I learned in life is that you make room for things that are important to you. Sleep is for the weak.
“She’s worth it. A’ight. See you here in two weeks.” Bryan and I fist-bump and I dart like an arrow to freedom. To the civilian world. I get a cab to the airport, where Grim is waiting for me, looking rested and smug as all fuck. He goes to Boulder. Strong football team, and he shines there, despite being a total asshat when he wants to be.
“Wow, Lev. I’d say you look like shit, but I’ve met dumps fresher than you.”
I believe him. There’s a cadet saying that the Air Force Academy is a $150,000 education stuck up your ass a nickel at a time.
Clapping his back in a bro-hug, I release him and step back, laughing. “You look happy.”
“I am happy,” he admits seriously. “Thanks for getting your head outta your ass just in the nick of time.”