Page 49 of Finding Mr. July

“I needed to make it right. I know I messed up.” He looks down, rubbing a hand across his neck.

“You don’t know how sorry I am. About everything—the way I talked about the calendar in the beginning, not believing in it, downplaying the deadline, not double-checking the submission.

I know I’m a screwup. Story of my life. But I am trying.

Meeting you made me want to do better. It’s made me want to change a lot of things, if I’m honest. And I know enough about conifers from Dad to know most of them don’t thrive in waterlogged ground.

But I understand if it’s too little too late.

I just want you to be happy.” He shoves his hands into his pockets and shrugs.

That word again. Happy. I got the job, so I should be, right?

“I am grateful to win the job,” I tell him, taking care to emphasize the choice of words. “But the happiest I’ve been in a long time is with you.”

His eyes find mine, the gray swirling with confusion.

I pick one of my questions with care and steel myself. “Do you want me to go to Glasgow? Is that why you helped me?”

“What?”

“We knew this was complicated, especially if I won. Well, now I have. But I’m thinking that maybe things are only as complicated as we make them. So, do you want me to go? Or do you want me to stay?”

Right away, his full lips part as if he’s been preparing for the question, but nothing comes out. The silence stretches infinite, invading my senses, and as the seconds go by, any hope I harbored wilts inside me. I guess that’s my answer.

“That’s okay,” I say, backing away. “All I wanted was to say thank you. I won’t bother you anymore.”

But as I turn to reach for my door handle, footsteps pound the pavement behind me.

“No,” Jonathan says, grasping my shoulder. “That’s not what I want at all.”

I look up into his beautiful face. “No?”

“In fact, I was hoping you’d come. Was hoping you’d… stay.” He gulps down the last word and then brushes something invisible off his brow. His scent billows toward me, prompting a starved inhale.

I search his eyes. “If you really mean it, I will.” For the first time in weeks, a genuine smile grows from deep in my core. “Who needs Scotland, right?”

“No,” he says again, this time taking my hands.

Oh, his hands… “I meant stay awhile. Here. Now. I would never ask you to give up your career for me. You’d resent me for it one day, and already knowing what that feels like, I couldn’t bear more of it.

” He reaches for my temple and runs a featherlight caress through my hair. “Because I love you.”

I blink at him. “You…”

“And if you love someone, you set them free.”

Wait, what? I try to make sense of what I’m hearing. He loves me, so he wants to put an ocean between us?

“You look confused,” he says.

“Um, yeah. You love me?”

A crooked grin. “You’re still stuck on that bit?”

“But you want me to take the job in Glasgow?”

“It’s what you’ve been working so hard for. To leave. Start over.”

I shift my stance, putting weight first on my right side and then the left. “But you would stay here.”

“Right.”

“I see.” I nod to myself. How do I explain this to him? “I’m sorry but I think that means we have a problem.”

It’s his turn to look confused. “How so?”

“Because there’s no way I can go without you.

” When he still just blinks at me, I fling my arms around his neck, barely giving him a chance to react and catch me as I let out the truth.

“Because I love you, too! So much. If you want me to go to Glasgow, we’re going to have to figure out a way for you to come with me. ”

Two crows stir from their spot on the grass at the commotion while Jonathan blinks at me. “But the job…”

“… is just a job,” I say. “I want more now.” I lean back in his arms to make sure he’s listening. “Don’t you get it? I want you.”

An explosion of light goes off behind his gray irises, a jubilant imitation of his photo spread in the calendar. “You do?”

When I nod, he crushes me to him briefly before kissing his way from the top of my head down my forehead, temple, and cheek.

He cups my face and presses his lips to mine.

Soft, but determined. Indulgent, but urgent.

Kissing him is like coming home. A familiar adventure where my favorite flavors shock me with their ability to catch me off guard.

He nips my lip harder than I’m used to as if to mark me but then immediately soothes the sting with another light kiss.

I return the favor with a sharp tug on his hair that makes him let out a husky hum.

When our most pressing thirst has been quenched and we come up for breath, I steady myself against him and look up. “Did you really have a passport appointment that morning?”

“I did.”

“Why?”

“Why?” He laughs. “I guess you brought out the optimist in me.”

“But you can’t fly.”

Instead of responding, he pulls his phone from his back pocket.

“Did you know you can get train tickets from Seattle to New York for under four hundred dollars?” he asks.

“Boats from New York to Southampton, England, run steeper, though still perfectly doable, at about thirteen hundred, and obviously a trip like that takes significantly longer than a flight—about three days for the train and seven for the boat. Then again, I’ve been on longer hauls than that in the past.”

I gape at him. “You’ve done research. But I didn’t have the job until today.”

“I started looking into this after you told me you’d miss me. As much as I fought it, part of me knew I’d need the option to go with you. If you asked me to, that is. My attorney thinks I have a good shot at being removed from the no-fly list.”

“You have an attorney and everything?”

“Your brother hooked me up with a referral.”

“He did not?”

“Good guy.” Jonathan smiles. “It’ll take some time, but we’ve started the process. No pressure, of course,” he hurries to add. “It needed to be done either way, but—”

“No, of course I want you to come with me.” I jostle him with my grip on his jacket. “Are you kidding me? Please, come with me. I love you. Come to Glasgow with me. We’ll both start over. Together.”

His expression softens, his gaze velveteen as he cups my cheek. “You asked,” he says.

“I did.” I rise up on my toes and kiss him again. Then another thought occurs. “What about Wayne?”

“No, my dad is not going to Glasgow,” Jonathan says, matter-of-factly. Only the crinkling at the corner of his eyes betrays the joke.

I pretend to slap his chest.

“No, but seriously.” Jonathan shakes his head. “The guy signed himself up for a rideshare service subscription. He probably got tired of me using him as an excuse.”

“Another good guy,” I say.

“And I already checked. Sir Leonard is more than welcome both on the train and on the boat. He should be able to join us no problem.”

Us. The word sinks in. Suddenly there’s a future for us .

The world around me tilts as if another microburst has decided to target me instead of the leaves on the ground.

I grasp Jonathan tighter and hide my face against his chest. Let out a shuddering breath and, with it, the tension that’s accumulated over the past two months.

All that’s left is Jonathan and me and possibilities.

“You okay?” he asks into my hair.

I take him in fully, this complex man who’s both been through the wringer and seen me through mine. Who’s not perfect, but perfect for me. Who’s changed me for good.

“Better than okay,” I say. “Now I’m happy.”