Total pages in book: 17
Estimated words: 18713 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 94(@200wpm)___ 75(@250wpm)___ 62(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 18713 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 94(@200wpm)___ 75(@250wpm)___ 62(@300wpm)
It’s the only person with whom I ever wanted to share Valentine’s Day even if, this year, we’re three days late.
At seven sharp, I’m an antsy, uncool mess, and I cannot deal with Elise and Jamie’s hovering excitement any longer. I walk out of my building just as Callum climbs out of an older Audi parked at the curb. He walks around the hood and sees me at the same time I see the cupcake box in his hand.
Forget flowers; give me a cupcake and it’s a perfect date.
After all this time, he remembered? With my thumping heart scaling my windpipe, I jog down to him, where he and that sparkling, widening smile are walking toward me, faster now, and I throw my arms around him. He catches me with one arm, holding me so tight, and exhaling the most amazing sound into my neck.
Callum pulls the small box from where it’s trapped between us and wraps his other arm around my waist. He lifts my feet off the ground and laughs, low and rumbling. The sound vibrates down my spine.
He is tall, arms long and muscular, and his skin smells soap-clean . . . My mind keeps reverberating back and forth between the disbelief that I am meeting C . . . that I am hugging Callum . . . that I am meeting C . . . that I am hugging Callum . . . and when I manage to merge these two realities, I become wildly aware of the heat and mass of his body. He feels incredible against me.
“Is it really you?” I ask into his neck.
“Yeah. It’s really me.”
“No way.” I squeeze my eyes closed, holding him tighter. “I cannot believe this.”
“Realizing it was you in the closet was the wildest thing that’s ever happened to me,” he agrees, his breath warm against my skin. “Let me see you. Come here.”
He sets me down, stepping back, and as I sweep my gaze over his face, rewiring everything I imagined with everything I know, I am overcome with the urge to cry. This is the person behind the computer for the last ten years. It’s crazy, I mean, it is c-r-a-z-y, but certainty lands when he says, “Woodbridge,” and I reply, “Uni High,” and he says, “Terra Bernice,” and I reply, “Callum Jude,” and he says, “Rowing,” and I pause and then reply, “You already know I played lacrosse,” and then he cups the side of my neck with his non-cupcake-holding hand and leans in. “Too soon?” he asks, breath minty, his lips only an inch from mine.
“I don’t normally kiss before the first date,” I tell him. “But you’re the exception to the rule.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
2025
From: c.sun16@email.com
To: t.sol18@email.com
Date: February 14, 2025
Subject: Happy Valentine’s Day
I win.
I love you.
From: t.sol18@email.com
To: c.sun16@email.com
Date: February 14, 2025
Subject: Re: Happy Valentine’s Day
CURSES! You distracted me with orgasms and then got up to get me water, like a real prince. I love you, too. SO much. I also forgot that I had an alert chime for this email, and the sound of it just gave me a shot of endorphins.
From: c.sun16@email.com
To: t.sol18@email.com
Date: February 14, 2025
Subject: Re: Happy Valentine’s Day
That you have any endorphins left right now is a shock, woman.
From: t.sol18@email.com
To: c.sun16@email.com
Date: February 14, 2025
Subject: Re: Happy Valentine’s Day
Right? Kristen was no fool. You give good dick.
Come back to bed.
Epilogue
2026
From: c.sun16@email.com
To: t.sol18@email.com
Date: February 14, 2026
Subject: What did you say . . .
. . . when I asked you to marry me exactly at midnight?
From: t.sol18@email.com
To: c.sun16@email.com
Date: February 14, 2026
Subject: Re: What did you say . . .
You’ll never forget what I said because I think you are still deaf from how loud I screamed YES into your ear.
Are we still going to be emailing each other from the same couch on Valentine’s Day in fifty years?
From: c.sun16@email.com
To: t.sol18@email.com
Date: February 14, 2026
Subject: Re: What did you say . . .
Without question.