“Come on.” She rubbed her hand over his back. “Hold it together.”
“I’m holding it.”
“Yeah, and that’s the third cup of coffee you’ve poured and left to go cold.”
They both looked around the kitchen, and Mia smiled. It was cute that he was so nervous.
“She should have a beeper, or a... hell, I don’t know.”
“Nick, she’s five years old.” Mia slid her arms around his waist, looked up at him, her chin on his chest. “Millions of five-year-olds across the country go to kindergarten every year. She’ll be fine. She’s ready.”
He sighed and wrapped his arms around her. “I know. Why is it that I’m not?”
“You love her, and you’re a natural-born worrier. And…” She stretched up on her tiptoes to give him a quick kiss. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
* * *
IT SEEMED NICK BLINKED and Hannah was six. Then blinked again and Mia was days away from graduating.
After a night of hot sex and sweet whispers, Mia and Nick lay reassuring each other of the future. They’d grown up together in the past four years. A lot of changing between eighteen and twenty-one, but their hearts were still as tightly wrapped around each other as their bodies were now.
“I’m sorry.”
It wasn’t the first time she’d said it, and he reassured her again, knowing she was worried about him. “It’ll be fine. Stop worrying.” He pulled her closer. “I’ll finish up my classes in the fall, make sure the guys are settled.”
“They could step up,” Mia said of Zach and Dallas. “They’re as old as you were when you took over everything.”
“Yeah. I think they will. But I’ll give them some time to get in the groove of college first.” They’d both decided to stick close and go to UVA. Nick still had his sights set on the FBI academy, but it wouldn’t be easy. He’d have to be away for twenty weeks, though after the first few, he’d be able to come home on the weekends.
“I should stay.”
“No. You shouldn’t.” No matter how much he wanted her to, she couldn’t. Her dream of being a surgeon was just as strong as it had been when he’d met her. Twenty-one years old and brilliant, he wouldn’t stand in the way of that. The fact that Harvard had awarded her a rare scholarship meant she was going back to Boston like she’d promised. “I’ve already got a line on a possible nanny. After school and nights when needed. It’ll work out. Don’t worry about it. It’s not your responsibility.”
“Don’t do that.” Her soft fingers traced down his cheek, and she turned his face to hers. “Don’t put up walls.”
But he had to put up some, or he wouldn’t survive this. Still didn’t know how he would do without her, and it had nothing to do with needing help with Hannah. It was all him. He needed her.
Suddenly needing her again, right now, he came over her, framing her face in his hands. “Nothing will change,” he said even as his chest hurt with the silent fear that everything would change.
They’d said “I love you” many times, but there was more. He felt more. “I never thought I would feel this way,” he said, staring into eyes he loved so much. “I mean…I knew what it was, I saw it with my parents, and I thought, I felt, so sure I’d never have that. That it wasn’t in me.”
“Nick.” She caressed the side of his face, linked her hands behind his neck.
“Maybe that’s the point,” he said. “Maybe no one has it until they find the other person who brings it. That’s what you did, Mia. You brought that missing piece. The only piece that would have ever fit.”
With her fingers in his hair, she pulled him down for a kiss. “I love you, too.”
THREE DAYS LATER, THEY stood just outside airport security. Mia would fly back to Boston the same way she’d come.
“We’ll see each other in three months,” he said with his arms wrapped around her and her face buried in his chest. He felt her nod.
“The girl with the plan,” he said, trying to make her smile, but she looked up at him, an unasked question in her eyes. “Hey, if you think I’m not steady enough to wait, that I don’t love you enough, you’re wrong.”
“I don’t think that. I’m steady, too, in love with you, too.” She gave him a watery smile. “How often would we see each other anyway? It might be better even, me not being close but too busy to play.”
And she wouldn’t end up helping him reach his dreams and letting hers slide by keeping house, looking after Hannah, and making sure the twins were eating meat and vegetables instead of mac and cheese. He loved her too much to let that happen. He smiled and pressed his lips to the top of her head. “I do love distracting you. I love you.”