Page 34 of The Risks of Reuniting (Love Connections #1)

"Hell isn't hot like I expected," he cracks, letting go of my face and taking me into his arms again. "It's frosty, frigid, and sad."

I turn my cheek against his chest and wrap my arms around his waist. "You forgot dreary, cloudy, dull. "

"Those things too." We stand in silence for a minute, and as my senses return I realize we're in the dark because at some point Rachelle closed our door. "Oh, boy. We have been seen by Rachelle."

He squeezes me. "This was her plan."

I swat at his back. "It was not. She's loyal to me."

"Correction. She's loyal to romance."

I snuggle in closer. "Holt, for real, we can say we love each other still, but . . ."

He pinches at my waist. "Did you just say you love me?"

My mouth dries, the fear stabbing in momentarily, but I shove that jerk down and suck in a deep breath. He has spent the past few weeks fully putting himself out there – I can meet him halfway.

"Yes," I say against his chest.

"Woohoo!" He manages to do a cheer that's quiet enough to keep others from hearing, and the under-the-breath celebration makes me laugh. "The feeling is incredibly mutual, baby."

Now it's my turn to pinch at his back. "But . . . that wasn't enough to keep us together before. I don't want to go through it all again only to find out we made the right choice last summer."

I hear him swallow. "Did we make the right choice? Have you been as unhappy as I have?"

"You moving was the wrong choice?" I fish, knowing full well it nearly killed me.

"Me being away from you will never be the right choice," he states firmly.

I tighten my arms around his waist, pulling as flush against him as I can go. "What do we do differently?"

"First things first," he says, tipping his chin to rest on my head, "I am officially asking for another chance.

I don't want any room for misunderstanding.

If you say yes, then we'll get out the war map and figure out some things, but all of that is pointless if you're not willing to fight to be together again. "

As I listen to his heart pound against my ear the same realization I came to just twenty minutes ago settles into my bones. I've already been in the valley, and I want to climb out. With him.

"Yeah," I whisper. "I'd like to go to war."

He whoops – loudly this time – and picks me up to swing me around. I laugh and hug him tight until I'm back on my feet once more. I poke him in the chest and make a fierce expression.

"I'm going to try, Holt, but this time we work together. Same team."

"Same team, corazón, same team."

And we seal the deal with a kiss before taking a ridiculous amount of time to say goodnight to each other. As I watch him disappear back toward his room, I smile broadly.

Guess it's time to tell my parents.

And my cousins.

And Allie.

It's going to be a long night . . . like I'll be able to sleep anyway.

I grab my phone and hoof it over to the Center office to steal WiFi. I only hope they're all as happy as I am.

Sun, May 25

Dear family,

First – let me tell you that I purchased awesome souvenirs for all of you yesterday, and I kept the receipts, and I will return them if you make my life crazy after reading this email.

Second – I need you to sit down and read carefully the words I am typing. Do not make up other words, or try to read between some lines to see what I'm "really saying" to you. These words are the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

Imagine that you're sitting in an airport one day and the man you loved with your whole heart comes walking to your gate and tells you he's going to the same place you're going, after you'd broken up and hadn't seen each other for a long time.

Yeah, that happened.

Holt has been here in Peru with me this whole time. Yep. I didn't tell you because I didn't know what to say. But, after a few weeks working together we've had a chance to talk and sort of reconnect, I guess, and we have decided we both missed each other and want to try to work it out.

Holt has an internship in SLC for a month after this, which will give us time to be together and see if we can make different choices than we did before.

I have many feelings about this, but I think we can all agree that I've been miserable without him and I need to take this risk because – darn it, I believe in love, okay? Mock me if you must. Please be nice to him. We were both to blame.

See you soon .

Love,

Chloe

Next step – the cousins.

Hey guys. Surprise surprise. Holt ended up on the same humanitarian trip as me.

Yeah, I maybe could have told you guys weeks ago, but I'm telling you now.

And we've kind of reconnected. And he's still a really good kisser.

And he's coming back to Salt Lake for a little bit. so that's the news here . . .

Dani

I feel like you just told us the ending of a romance novel without letting us read the first chapters. Back up and give us all the details! Did you have a meet-cute? Is he still sexy as ever? Do you have pictures? I need details!

Avery

Wait, seriously? That's amazing!

He surprised me by showing up at the airport gate in Atlanta. So I guess that's a meet-cute? He's still the sexiest! I'm proud of myself for holding out as long as I did. I haven't taken any pictures because I didn't wanna jinx it, but I'll see what I can do this week :)

Poppy

I'm still kinda hung up on the "should have told you before" part. Why didn't you tell us??? There's been kissing and we didn't even know he was there?? WHO ARE YOU??

:) Sorry Pops! I didn't tell you guys because I didn't know what to make of the whole thing. It blew my mind. I have now picked my mind back up off the floor and will be better about communicating!

Poppy

We make a good sounding board. You didn't have to go through it alone.

Sadie

Of course he ended up on the same trip as you :) You two are meant to be together.

Lucy

I love a good second chance romance. Plus, he's been your co-worker this whole time? Double tropes, double love. I'm so happy for you!

And last, but not least, my best friend, Allie definitely needed a full update.

Hey Al. I may have kissed Holt a few times

Allie

What now?

You read that right

Allie

How did we go from shock he's there, to kissing?

You should be more surprised that it took us this long. I have no willpower around him

Allie

True. He's the peanut butter to your chocolate

The banana to my sundae

Allie

The mint to your brownie

Mmm…. brownies

Allie

What's the plan then? You do have a plan?

So far the plan is that we agreed to give it a second chance.

Allie

And what does that look like?

He'll be in SLC for the next month. We have time to figure it out.

Allie

And if you don't?

We have to.

I couldn't bear to think it could fall apart again.

Mon, May 25 – follow up

Fam,

Grandma Sue- yes, he remembers you and still thinks you're the classiest .

Dad – yes, he can worry about my HOA issues if we get back together, but more importantly, I – a full grown woman and owner of the condo – can handle them myself. However, if you need to assign that to him in order to feel better, we can both pretend he'll be the one dealing with it.

Mom – of course I'm partially to blame in this break-up. I like that you think I'm perfect, but I am not, and I made some mistakes. We'd love to come to dinner soon.

Gavin – yes, shocker, a guy likes me and even after we broke up he still liked me. That's me winning this competition. Has a girl ever liked you? I think not. Put down your drain-clearing tools and take a shower, there's still hope.

Chlo