She looked away quickly, like she wasn’t expecting it, and sucked in a huge gulp of air.
“Why’d you pick this place?” I asked and she shrugged.
“It seemed appropriate.”
“Appropriate?” I didn’t understand.
“Appropriate,” she confirmed. “I feel like the ending scene in movies always happens in some pivotal location where they can take aerial shots of the whole thing. And I didn’t think they could fit a helicopter in either one of our apartments.”
I smiled again, and this time, I felt it in places other than my face. Lola had been picturing our happy ending.
“Yeah. You’re right. Pretty sure I’d have needed the two-bedroom.”
“Why are we here?” she asked, and in that moment, it was simple. All of the complication and expectation fell away, and all that was left was love. My love for her, and hers for me.
“Because you and I are better together.”
She sighed, and I wasn’t sure if she didn’t believe me or wanted something different, but I didn’t care. I wasn’t leaving here without her.
Turning to face her directly, I put two fingers to her chin and forced her to do the same. “We are, LoLo. My life is infinitely better than what it was, now that you’re in it. You make me laugh and reconsider, and hell, you make me forget to be such a thinker and just live.”
“I need you to do things—”
“And I plan to do them,” I promised. I didn’t care what they were. “Pencil them in on my calendar.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You don’t have a calendar. Are you kidding me?”
“I’ll get one,” I teased. “It’ll have your picture on the front, and hey, maybe a naked picture of you on each month.”
She shoved me hard enough that the box fell off my legs, and I laughed. “Hey, watch it. You’re going to ruin your present.”
“Present?” Her whole demeanor perked up, and I was hit with the memory of mindlessly walking the streets of Chinatown hand in hand with Lola. It’d been a fun afternoon, perusing trinkets inside the various gift shops. And once she’d set her sights on this obscure little porcelain cat, she had been fixated. Lola had loved that kitschy little souvenir, and since I loved her, I’d purchased it on a whim when she wasn’t paying attention.
The present would’ve been inconsequential to anyone else. But not Lola. She’d been so damn excited, bouncing around and screeching her happiness like an adorable little ball of quirky.
I took in her curious eyes, and my heart made itself known with each pounding thump thump thump inside my chest. I needed her. I wanted her. I loved her more than I’d ever loved anything in my life.
Her eyes glanced down at the box and then back up at me. She was all but vibrating with impatience to know what was hidden inside.
“Do you want to open it?” I smiled, and there was no denying my heart was honestly in my eyes. It belonged to her.
She searched my face, and I saw the instant realization set in. She shook her head in an attempt to regain her composure—and her distance. “Reed—”
I wasn’t ready for her to get either of them back. “Just open it,” I interrupted. “I’m pretty sure it’ll answer all those questions swirling in your eyes, and I won’t even have to strain my voice.”
Swiping the box from my lap, she pulled off the lid and gasped.
“Oh, my God!”
I didn’t know what she’d been expecting, but I was ninety-nine percent positive it wasn’t that.
“Yep,” I confirmed.
“Oh, my God!” she shrieked again.
“Yep,” I repeated through a laugh.
“It’s—”
“Us.”
“A really fucking creepy version,” she muttered. You couldn’t have melted the smile off of my face with a microwave.
“I know. Aren’t they great?”
She stared down at them, shock turning to wistfulness, but everything else about her was frustratingly quiet. “Lo?”
“You got us marionette puppets,” she whispered roughly.
“I did.”
“Of us.”
I nodded. “Uh-huh.”
“At eighty years old.”
“That’s right.”
“Oh, my God.”
I pulled the old man puppet version of me out of the box and handed it to her. “Now, I know your dream was to have one of yourself, and you still can if that’s what you decide…”
“But?”
“But I think this is better.” I shrugged and spoke around the emotion clogging my throat. “My strings are yours to pull, Lo.”
Her hand went to her mouth, but I pulled it away and linked it with mine, trapping the other one against her thigh with the weight of my own. “I should have gone with you to Santa Cruz. I should have really listened when you asked, and I should have known that when it comes to you and me, none of the rules I’d created for myself on my own would apply. New us, new rules.”