Page 76 of Beautiful Trauma
“Hello, Ezra,” I said, an answering smile creeping across my face. How had I ever thought we were through? “Are we having aPretty Womanmoment?”
“More like a Pretty Henry moment.”
“Play hard to get,” Jessie whispered behind me.
“I heard that, harpy,” Ezra teased.
“Must be the new hearing aid you bought, geezer,” Jess countered.
Rather than be offended, Ezra tipped his head back and laughed. “I’m coming up, Henry.” Then he began the slow climb up to my window.
“I’m not so sure about this,” I said to him as the metal structure creaked.
“I am,” Ezra confidently said, gaining another foot closer to me. “Nothing and no one keeps me away from you. Not rusty fire escapes, not so-called friends, and certainly not a college administration.” A few more feet and he was standing in front of me. “I choose you, Henry. I’m always going to choose you.”
I fisted his shirt and pulled him through the window and into my arms.
“That’s my cue to leave,” Jess said. I heard the door shut a second later.
“You’re deciding for me, huh?” I asked.
“You know how I like to take charge.” Ezra leaned forward, rubbing his nose against mine.
“It’s one of your most endearing qualities,” I said, savoring the warmth of his embrace.
Ezra chucked then kissed my forehead. “I bet you won’t be saying that in another forty years.”
Forty years. Happy tears filled my eyes. “What about school and the asshole?”
“The asshole resigned immediately. We’ll never have to look at him again,” Ezra said.
“And the school?”
“I’d already scheduled an appointment to meet with Regina on Monday. After the altercation in the garden, I escalated my confession. We’re meeting with her at eight thirty on Monday with our lawyer.”
“Our lawyer?” I asked. “That sounds like we’re going in with our guns blazing.”
Ezra kissed my lips to soothe me. “My mother is formidable, and she has a vested interest in the outcome.”
“Simone is representing us?”
“She adores you, Henry, and there’s no way she’s letting either of us get railroaded. We’re not exactly the first two people to find ourselves in this predicament. I’m sure her presence won’t be necessary, but it won’t hurt us either. She invited us over for a family dinner slash strategy session.”
I groaned. “I can’t face your parents.”
“You have to because I need to return Steed to Dad. I thought he was nervous about letting me borrow his Aston Martin. It turns out his sixty-year-old Vespa scooter is more valuable to him than the car that cost him six figures.”
“Oh my gosh! He still has Steed after all these years?” I asked.
“My parents know how to hold on to the things that mean the most.You’rewhat matters the most to me. I can teach at another university, but I could never find another Henry. Take me back.”
As if there were any doubt. “You had me at ‘Hello, Henry.’”
Three months later…
“THIS BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION IS MUCHnicer than the one I set up last year,” Geoff said beside me.
Ezra had rented out half of Rinella’s to celebrate my twenty-second birthday. His family was there along with my friends from school and Ryan’s Place plus Ezra’s friends on the faculty that had stuck by us, including Regina Bronson. It was rough at first, but Simone had been fierce and amazing when she brokered an agreement that everyone could live with. Ezra kept his job but was placed on probation, and I was stripped of my Biology of Human Sexuality credits and also placed on probation. The two of us frequently played naughty professor and slutty student in the privacy of our own home.