Telling Alexa that he’d loved her hadn’t been as hard as he’d thought it would be. As a matter of fact, he wanted to keep saying it, over and over. But did she feel the same way? He couldn’t tell. All he knew was her hand was in his and she was here with him.
He might as well tell her everything.
“Look.” He held out his phone to her. She looked at him with a question in her eyes but took it anyway. “This is how sure I am. Read this email.”
She cleared her throat and looked at his phone. He was still gripping her hand.
“Drew Nichols, Children’s Hospital of Oakland is pleased to offer you the position of . . .” Her voice trailed away. “Is this for real?”
He took the phone out of her hand.
“Very much for real. I called my mentor on Sunday. He told me when I saw him before the wedding that there was going to be a job opening up here and tried to get me to apply for it. I said no then, but . . . I changed my mind. It was a little more complicated than he’d implied, and I can’t start until—”
She threw her arms around him and buried her head in his chest. She was crying again, but he hoped that these were good tears. He pulled her tight against him.
“I’m only going to take it if you want me to,” he said against her ear. “Please tell me you do?”
She turned her head and pulled his head down to hers for a long kiss. Eventually, he pulled back and wiped the tears from her face with his thumb. My God, he’d missed her so much.
“Tell me.”
She smiled up at him, her eyes sparkling through her tears.
“Yes, I want you to take it.”
He kissed her eyelids, her cheeks, her hair.
“Don’t you have something else to tell me?” he said, his lips a breath away from hers.
“I love you.” The tears streamed from her eyes as she said it. “Oh, Drew, I love you so much. I’ve been trying to deny to myself all week how much I love you.”
He brushed her tears away.
“I’ve been trying to admit to myself how much I love you.”
He held her face in his hands and kissed her, their tears mingling with each other’s, their bodies fitting together like they were made to be just like that.
“Mizz Monroe?” The voice came from the doorway. Alexa put her head on his shoulder, laughing into his mascara-stained shirt before she turned toward the security guy. “I was going to lock up. Should I, um . . .”
Alexa cleared her throat.
“Sorry about this, Stu. You can lock up. Let me just get my stuff.”
She picked her purse back up from where she’d dropped it on the ground and took Drew’s hand.
“Let’s go home.”
He squeezed her hand and walked with her out the door.
“Aren’t you forgetting that we have to meet up with everyone from your office?”
She stopped and laughed as she wiped her face with the sleeve of her suit jacket.
“I can’t believe it, but I had forgotten that. I’ll text Theo; he’ll understand. Olivia can come over . . . a little bit later.”
Drew shook his head. He wanted nothing more than to take her straight home and make up for all of their lost time, but he knew she’d regret missing out on this night with her crew.
“No, no, you can’t not go. This is your night of triumph!” He took her heavy bag from her and tossed it over his own shoulder.
She smiled up at him.
“See, this is why I love you.”
He laughed.
“This is it? Of all the things it could be, me sending you out to have drinks with your coworkers instead of locking you in the bedroom with me is why you love me?”
She reached for his hand and squeezed it.
“Yeah. It is.”
He lifted their joined hands and kissed hers.
“Now, let’s get you into the bathroom to wash your face before your whole office sees you with raccoon eyes. Plus, if you walk in there looking like that, your sister is going to draw and quarter me.”
She laughed.
“Come with me upstairs to my office so I can repair myself.” She pulled his face down so she could whisper in his ear. “And you know, my office door locks, so no one will interrupt us there.”
He liked the sound of that. He gestured to the hallway with his free hand.
“Lead the way, Monroe.”
Epilogue
“Why can’t Carlos meet us at the restaurant?”
They walked into the Fairmont, almost a year after they’d met there. Carlos was in town and was staying there for some reason, instead of one of the more convenient hotels downtown. Drew had insisted on meeting him in his room, instead of at the restaurant where they were having dinner. Alexa was trying not to complain about it, but it was a Thursday night at seven, she’d had a long day, and she was ready for a cocktail and an enormous plate of French fries.
“He needs your opinion on his outfit. I don’t know.” Drew had been distracted their whole drive there and kept checking his phone. She knew he had a few patients he was worried about, but this was unusual for him.
She pressed the button for the elevator and looked up at him and smiled, ready to reminisce about their elevator, but he wasn’t looking at her; he was looking off in the distance. Okay. She tried not to take it personally.
In the past year, they’d had their ups and downs. They’d learned how to deal with two busy careers and a relationship, too; what the other person was like on an early Monday morning and a stressful Thursday night instead of just their idyllic weekends; that she never made the bed; that Drew always left the lights on.
They’d also learned how to talk to each other about their feelings, even when they were scary. And throughout everything, they’d loved each other. Those two things helped them get over all of the bumps, big and little.
The corner elevator—their elevator—opened, and he grabbed her hand and led her inside. She looked up at him to ask another question, saw something out of the corner of her eye, and turned.