I figured this way, Harper had an out. If she didn’t want to see me, if she didn’t want to give me another chance to explain, she wouldn’t have to. She could just tear up the ticket, sell the dress, or wear it on another date with whomever she was surely dating by now, and that would be that.
My stomach sank at the thought of her with another man. But a woman like Harper wouldn’t stay single long. Not if American men had eyeballs in their heads.
I’d all but convinced myself she wasn’t going to show, that she’d clearly turn down this invitation, because why on earth would she still want to give me the time of day, let alone a date?
That’s when the doors to the building blew open again, and her familiar auburn head appeared between them.
The moment I saw her walk inside, the rest of the world stopped. All the other people in the building seemed like statues, carved very realistically, but lifeless, meaningless. There was only Harper, as far as I could see.
And somehow, miraculously, crazily, she feels the same way about me.
I gaze down at her, asleep beside me on the spare hotel bed, after we destroyed the first one we fell onto. I run my hand through her hair and for the first time in my life, I know that I’m exactly where I belong.
Epilogue
“Come on, Harper!” Mary Kate’s voice calls from around the bend. “Keep up! Or at least stop canoodling.”
I unlock my lips from Jack’s to grin at him sideways. “What do you think? Had enough canoodles for the moment?”
His answering grin sets off a fresh wave of sparks through my nerve endings. “Never.” Before I can stop him, he swoops in to lick my cheek, and I swat his shoulders. His tongue continues on down my neck, until he’s nibbling on my earlobe, and my knees decide they’d really like to stop working, please. His knee takes advantage of this, snaking between mine, and he steps forward until my back is pressed up against the nearest rough bark tree, and his thigh rubs along the seam of my pants, just hard enough to make those nerves pool in my stomach.
“You two really are impossible,” Patrick adds as he hikes past, his hand wrapped in his new girlfriend Audrey’s grasp as they both roll their eyes at us. “More PDA than a pre-college rave party full of 13-year-olds.”
Audrey, in her defense, swats his arm immediately. “Quit being a jerk, babe.”
“I’m just being honest!” He casts a smirk in our direction. “Catch up quick, or I’m eating all the cheese.”
“Oi!” I glower after him, though it’s still not enough to tempt me to unwrap my arms from Jack’s waist. His hands curl at the small of my back, and he leans in to nuzzle at the crook of my neck.
I’ve been back in Oxford for two months, yet it already feels like a lifetime. A perfect, impossibly wonderful lifetime that I pray will never end. So far, so good. My classes started a couple weeks ago, but even with my heavy course-load at Balliol, Jack and me find plenty of time together. Long days exploring Oxford’s hidden nooks and crannies, little out-of-the-way restaurants where the proprietors already know our names, bars where our friends collect for nightcaps, and museums where we soak in long, lazy weekend afternoons admiring the art – or pretending to admire the art and sneaking way too many longing glances at one another, before we’re forced to sneak off to the nearest private corner, arm-in-arm.
And the nights? Flashbacks of last night dart through my imagination: Jack staying over at my new flat, because my roommates were out celebrating the first Friday of term, and he wanted to surprise me with a home-cooked dinner for two.
Accidentally breaking one of the dishes when we got distracted halfway through said dinner and he lifted me onto the table, pushing everything out of the way. Ignoring the crash this caused because his hands were already undoing my zipper, and before I could blink he was pounding into me, shaking the floor of the whole place until the tenant downstairs banged on the roof and shouted at us to shut up.
Then moving the party to the shower instead…
We both glance in either direction, our friends out of sight now, and he leans in again, his lips tantalizingly close, but not quite touching mine. “I can’t stop thinking about you on your knees in front of me last night,” he breathes in my ear.
“Mm, my second favorite part of the night.” I lean against his chest.
“Second?” He frowns, offended. “What was the first?”
I unloop my arms from his waist and, despite the effort it takes, peel myself away from him to continue up the trail, with only a single teasing backwards glance. “I’ll tell you tonight. When we can reenact it.”