Page 59 of Sam & Justin

“You better buy me a fucking pretzel,” I muttered as the cheerleaders came out.

I didn’t know enough about football to know if the team was any good. I guessed they were decent, given that they had more points on the scoreboard by halftime than the other team did. I didn’t know when to cheer either, so I just went along with what Justin was doing. If I was being honest, I hadn’t paid much attention to the game at all. I spent the whole time looking at Justin. He was really into the game, and he seemed to know what was going on.

I loved watching the way his eyes lit up based on what was happening on the field. I loved watching the way he reacted to every little thing. I didn’t even mind how he sometimes got caught up in conversation with people around him. Almost every person in the stands knew him, and most of them were friendly enough to me when he introduced me as his partner. I caught afew wary glances when they heard my name, but I figured that was going to be par for the course until they realized I wasn’t the same guy I used to be in high school.

It was happening surprisingly faster than I thought it would, now that I was in Gomillion full time. Hell, one of my client’s moms had gone to high school with me, and she seemed pretty impressed when we were talking about her kid and his problems. At the end of our conversation, she said that knowing who I’d been in high school gave her faith that I’d be able to reach her kid. It felt so different than what happened back in King’s Bay, and it just told me that I’d made the right call.

Halftime had a lot of goings on. The homecoming court was crowned, and right before the game came back, a familiar looking teen joined the makeshift stage in the middle of the field. She cleared her throat right as I nudged Justin. “Why does she look familiar?”

“It’s Amber,” he whispered back. “You met her at the reunion. She was the one going around, collecting votes for the new mascot.”

That would do it. And it turned out, Amber’s announcement had to do with the mascot voting. She made a speech about the different mascot designs. She took us through the process of narrowing it down, the voting process, all of it. Then at the end, she introduced the new mascot with a hearty Go Millions!

I looked at the winning design and shook my head. “Damn, I really wanted the other one to win. The scary looking one.”

The one that had won looked like a cartoon character, and the real life version looked goofy as hell. Justin, on the other hand, was pretty much bouncing in his seat. “Yes! I voted for that one.”

We realized what the other said at the same time, and we almost fell out of our seats laughing.

We’d voted for opposite designs.

His hand found mine as we stopped laughing, and the team took the field for the second half.

If someone had told me a few months ago that I’d be here now, happy in Gomillion, I would’ve laughed myself sick. But now? I couldn’t imagine being anywhere else. I couldn’t imagine being with anyone else.

Gomillion had never been home for me, but going back had brought me to Justin. It had brought me home.

Epilogue

One Year Later

The last year had brought a lot of changes.

I’d fallen in love with the boy I’d tutored in high school. In the quietest hours of the night, I’d contemplated leaving Gomillion to be with him. But in the end, Sam made the sacrifice to be with me, and I promised myself the day he made that choice, I would never let him regret it. Over the past year, I’d worked hard to live up to that promise. But he worked hard to make sure that I didn’t regret letting him move here either.

Every day, we fell deeper in love with one another.

Over the course of the last year, he started spending more time at my house. He was there at least four or five nights a week before we decided that we were being ridiculous in keeping two places. I asked him to move in with me a few weeks before hewas set to renew the lease on his office. It wasn’t like he wouldn’t still renew his lease. He had to work, but he didn’t have to live at work anymore.

He moved in over the course of a few weeks, loading boxes into his car when he’d come over. His books joined mine on the shelf, and we laughed every time we found duplicate titles. We put the duplicates in a pile, and he left them in his office for his clients to take home if they wanted. Over the winter, he moved his motorcycle into the small garage I never used, and he’d started filling it with the tools he needed to work on his bike.

The day he brought over the last box, we went out for a nice dinner. When we came home, we curled up on the couch together to watch an episode of one of his favorite shows. He’d introduced it to me, just like I’d introduced my favorite show to him when we’d first started dating. We didn’t have the same taste in shows, except forJeopardy, but we took it in turn to choose what show we were watching unless there was a new one that caught both of our interest.

“I think we should get a dog,” I told him as I reached out to pause the episode we were watching.

He looked at me and then down at Biscuits curled up in his lap. “You think Biscuits wants a dog?”

I laughed, because honestly, I couldn’t imagine my cat sharing attention with any other creature. I’d never been able to imagine that, but it wasn’t just about me. Just like it wasn’t just about Biscuits. It was about Sam, and I knew that Sam liked dogs.

I wanted to make him happy, and I saw the way he lit up when I mentioned it. I’d seen him light up the same way when we’d pass dogs at the park. He always wanted to stop and pet them, no matter what we were doing. He’d confessed to me that he’d always been a dog person, but that he’d never had a dog of his own. His parents hadn’t liked animals, his ex-husband had been allergic, and his apartment in King’s Bay didn’t allow pets at all. But he’d always wanted a dog, and I wanted to be the one to make that dream come true for him.

After all, he’d made every single one of my dreams come true. He’d given me a lover who put me first, who made sacrifices to make sure I was happy. He took care of me, and he let me take care of him in turn. He made me laugh in a way that no one ever had before in my life. He made me feel loved in a way that no one ever had, and he let me see his big, beautiful heart. It was so full of love, and I wanted to give him more ways to share that love.

A dog could be one of those ways.

“We could adopt one. The shelter is crowded, and they’re doing a name your own adoption fee event this weekend.”

He reached down and pet Biscuits. There was a cautious look of hope on his face, and I wanted to kiss that look away. He took a deep breath, and then he nodded slowly. “We can go look.”

His voice sounded casual, but I could see the light in his eyes. I hoped that we’d find him the dog of his dreams while we were there. If we didn’t, we’d keep looking. Because now that I saw that hope in his eyes, I would do anything to keep it there. I would do anything to make him smile, to make him happy, tokeep my promise that he would never regret moving back to Gomillion.

“I love you,” I whispered softly.

“Love you too,” he repeated. He angled his head back to kiss me. The movement jostled Biscuits, who jumped down to the ground with a disgruntled meow. I laughed against his lips and deepened the kiss.

When I’d started planning the high school reunion, I hadn’t realized that I was going to find the love of my life there. When I’d looked up Sam on social media, I hadn’t realized that I was looking into my future.

Now, I couldn’t imagine my life without him. I could only imagine my future with him.

The End