Page 42 of The Best Worst Mistake (Off-Limits #2)

Dax

She’s not here. Abby’s not beside me in bed when I wake up. Before I can even roll over, I curse myself for being naive enough to fall asleep, like I should have stayed up all night in front of the door so she couldn’t bolt.

But when I start to get up, there’s a note on the nightstand, propped up against a hot mug of coffee. I feel like I’m having déjà vu in reverse. My stomach plummets toward the mattress and I grab it, forcing myself to read her note, for better or for worse.

Dax,

Come join me outside before you miss it. And consider this your personal invitation to play ball.

P.S. Thanks for not giving up on me.

I breathe a sigh of relief that feels like I’ve been holding onto it since that first morning I saw her in New York. The door in the corner of my bedroom leading out to the wraparound porch is already open a crack, so I throw on a pair of sweats and walk over to push it the rest of the way open.

The most beautiful girl in the world is wrapped up in my blanket, sitting on one of the white rocking chairs outside. Her cheeks are bathed in amber sunbeams, which are just starting to make their way up over the skyline.

She turns, and although I’ve stared into that face more times than I can count, it’s as if I’m seeing her for the first time.

The liquid gold in her eyes, like honey in the warmth of the early morning light.

Her thick, dark hair, normally piled high on her head, is now wavy and down, encircling her chin, falling against her cheekbones and shoulders, still mussed from my hands running through it for most of last night.

She smiles, and my whole future flashes with it.

One that includes twenty-five-thousand mornings just like this stretched out before us, enough for us both to reach at least a hundred years old.

Which might not even be enough, if every one of our days begins just like this.

“Hi,” she says, giving me a lopsided grin. “I was about to wake you. I wanted to let you sleep as long as possible, but I also wasn’t going to let you miss this. You woke up just in time.”

She turns her gaze to the rising sun, but I keep my eyes on her, knowing the better view is the one right in front of me. I slide into the chair beside her, but it doesn’t feel close enough, so I grab her hand, holding it in the space between us.

“I’ve never done this,” she says, closing her eyes against the sunbeams. The melted pat of butter rises on the horizon, tucked between the buildings with bright rose-colored rays and canary-yellow fragments of light shooting out all around the towering cityscape.

I squeeze her hand, already aware that she’s never allowed herself to stay longer than it takes to open her eyes and bolt from the bed. That is, if she allowed her eyes to close at all the night before.

“I know,” I whisper.

“No, I mean I’ve never watched the sunrise. With anyone,” she says, tightening her grip on my hand without looking over. “I didn’t even realize that it should be on my L.A. bucket list, but now I don’t want to miss a single second of it.”

I love the way she eats up every new experience as if it’ll be her last. It feels like a dream. Sitting on my wraparound porch with a girl I’ve imagined having here dozens of times. Wondering what it might be like to see her face as the sun fills the sky, doing exactly what we’re doing right now.

“I’m glad you stayed,” I tell her.

She turns to look at me. “Want to hear something wild?” she asks.

“Always.”

“I’ve never had someone waiting for me when I get home. Other than Liv, of course, when we were in college, but I mean someone who’s there wanting to take care of me.”

Oof . That spot in my chest that ached for two days after Abby took me to her childhood neighborhood suddenly twists open again.

She tightens the blanket up around her shoulders, still bare underneath.

“How is that possible?”

“When I got to L.A., I was dreading what it would be like to live somewhere with a house manager and a gardener — all these people in my space . I knew it’d be better than staying anywhere near Brett, but I thought I’d be hiding out in my room and counting down the days until I got back into my empty apartment back home.

” She chuckles, like she can’t believe she’s saying that now.

“But it’s going to be the second thing I miss the most after I get back.

” She grins at me and I think, from her face, that I’m the first. “How have I gotten to be thirty years old without having experienced that?”

“Most people have never experienced living with a house manager,” I tease, knowing it goes so much deeper.

She laughs, and I lightly tug her arm, pulling her up onto my lap. She settles in against me, tucking her head just below my chin. I tighten my arms around her, no space between us.

“I don’t mean that I’ve missed out on having a house staff.” She laughs, gently pressing her elbow against my ribs.

“Then what have you been missing?” I mutter into her hair.

“Feeling what it’s like to come home.”

I kiss the top of her head, wishing I could make any of this easier on her. Hoping I already have.

She goes on. “I’ve never come home at the end of the day to see someone who’s genuinely excited to see me.” I look down at her as she stares into the rising sun. “It’s like pulling back the curtain on the type of life I’ve never even allowed myself to think about.”

“And you’ve had that here,” I say.

“Every single day.”

She sniffs and takes a sip of her coffee, setting the mug down on the table beside us.

“I’ve spent my whole life not knowing how wonderful it could be if I let someone in.”

It feels as though my chest splits straight down the middle. How can anything I say fix the heartbreak she’s been caught up in for her entire life? Or the realizations of a life that could have been?

She smiles up at me, as if embarrassed, then adds, “You want to know the worst part of this, now that I’ve finally found someone that I like saying good morning to?”

I nod, but I think I already know the answer.

“That I’ll be leaving you here when I head back to New York at the end of all this.”

It feels like a gut punch, hearing what I already knew come out of her mouth.

“We can cross that bridge when we come to it,” I tell her, pressing my lips into her, breathing in the sweet scent of her hair, already feeling the weight of missing her.

The truth is that even though my parents were wonderful parents, I’ve never come home day-after-day to anyone who has missed me, either.

All this is making me realize that some voids in life can’t be felt — it’s not until they’ve already been filled that you realize the hole was there all along.

“How ironic is it that we had all that time in law school, where we lived on the same campus, and I waited all this time to finally date you?”

I laugh.

“It was hardly wasted time,” I remind her.

“But it could have been so much more meaningful.”

“Maybe we needed it to happen this way so we could appreciate each other more by the time we got here.”

She pulls back then kisses me, slowly, and if she’s trying to make her lips do the talking for her, helping me recognize everything she’s feeling in this moment, she’s doing a pretty good job of it. By the time she pulls away, I never want her to stop.

“I don’t know how I got lucky enough for you to give me a second chance,” she says, settling back against my chest.

“Third,” I remind her.

She laughs.

“Third. I don’t know how I got lucky enough for you to give me a third chance,” she repeats correctly.

“Some things are worth having,” I tell her. “Even if it takes a few tries.”

Then we finish watching the sun rise, until the entire sky is as bright as I’ve ever seen it.