31. Annie

ANNIE

"Want to hang out in the hot tub tonight?" Sam asks as we walk back from dinner later that day.

"I guess," I say, but I don't particularly like hot tubs. They feel nice for about five minutes before I get too hot and too antsy and just want to get out. I personally don't understand the appeal.

"You don't have to do that, you know," he says, bumping my shoulder with his.

"Do what?" I ask, looking up at him and I find him already looking down at me. Butterflies swirl in my stomach. Maybe someday I'll be able to tell him just exactly what his look does to me.

"Say yes even when you don't want to do something," he answers.

I struggle to find words. "I want to. Kind of. But I don't really enjoy hot tubs much. For like less than ten minutes and then I just want to get in the pool."

Sam gives me an easy grin. "That's fine with me."

"Are you just saying that?" Growing up, I was always a people pleaser, then everything that happened with Mitch didn't really help that. Now I don't know how to balance saying yes to other people and doing more of what I want to do. And I worry that other people say yes to accommodate me, even when they don't want to and I hate that.

"Annie," Sam says and my stomach flips just like it always does whenever he says my name. "We already talked about this."

"I know, but—" He puts a finger to my lips. I stare up at his bright blue eyes.

"No buts. Just relax. We'll get warm in the hot tub and then swim in the pool. I honestly just want to hang out with you. Like we used to."

"I'm sorry," I murmur against his finger. It's my fault we stopped hanging out, I left.

He shakes his head. "None of that either. I know why you left. I just wish you'd have told me where you were going so I could have come."

I wish he had come with me. For the past month or so, I've been letting myself daydream about what a life with him would look like in Colorado. It'd be a fresh start for both of us.

I decide to be brave. "You could come now, if you wanted," I tell him and then I'm scrambling. I didn't mean to say that right this second, but I guess there's no time like the present. "I need a restaurant manager and you could still do your YouTube thing. I could give you great hours and you might like?—"

He cuts me off again, this time with both of his hands cupping my face. "Yes."

"Yes?" I ask in a small voice. Incredulous that he'd just pick up his life in New York and move to Colorado.

"Yes, sunshine. I'll do it."

I grin up at him, feeling as though a weight has been lifted. I didn't realize I was so stressed about finding someone. I know I've been putting it off, but that's just what I do, I put things off. But this feels good. Right. For him to work with me.

I'm glad I asked him.

I feel even better knowing that he'll be coming home with me. Maybe I need to trust myself, my emotions, and his and stop dragging my feet. There's been something between us for so long, I want to let it happen the way it's supposed to.

He smiles down at me and for a moment, I think he's going to kiss me. My heart flutters at the thought. But instead he releases my face and takes a step back. "Should we hit the pool and talk details?"

"Absolutely."

"I found this really fantastic space. It's on the corner of the main street in Estes Park and it's perfect," I tell him. He's still in the hot tub, and I'm on the edge with my feet dangling in. He's watching me attentively and only once has he glanced at my little sun tattoo. "I still don't have a name but I kind of want to name it something that is sort of a Taylor Swift reference, but that might be too much so I don't know."

"I'll start brainstorming ideas," Sam says. "What about your menu? Do you know what you want to do yet?"

"I've got a breakfast menu almost finished and I want to have a lunch menu. I'd really love for it to be a little cafe that"s only open until two or three. I"m tired of working all night long, even though I haven't done that in months." Not since I left New York.

"You need your evenings to relax or hang out with friends, or to reread Emma." He smiles at me.

Or to kiss him, I think. I give him a smile. "How do you remember that?"

"Remember what?"

"That Emma is my favorite book."

He looks at me like he can't believe I just said that. "Oh I don't know, maybe it's the fact that you reread it at least once a year. Or maybe the fact that I stole a copy from you once and you never asked for it back and the next week I saw you reading another copy."

"I knew you stole it on purpose," I say.

"You never asked for it back." He shrugs. "So I kept it. It's the copy I read from that night in New York."

"Did you read all of it?" I ask. It"s a dumb question because he is a reader. And he did start reading it out loud to me, something I've managed to forget though it wasn't that long ago.

"I've read it twice," Sam says, surprising me. "Though the first time, I didn't read much of the book, I just read all of your highlights and notes. I wanted to know what you loved about it."

I shake my head and laugh. "I was mad for about ten seconds when I realized you'd taken my annotated copy, but then I got to do it again and that was a lot of fun."

"Happy to have helped," he says.

My phone that"s sitting on top of my cover-up lights up. I reach over to grab it.

"Noah and Tally and her family just landed in Los Angeles," I tell him. "They are going to get here so late."

"At least they have all day tomorrow to sleep, before the wedding on Friday."

"True."

"Noah's expecting me to stay in your room again tonight, since they don't land here until like two," he says.

"That's okay."

"Hopefully the AC is fixed. If it's not, I might sleep naked," he says and I blush.

"Uh," is all I manage to get out.

"I'm kidding. I just wanted to see how you'd react to that. You're adorable when you blush." He smiles and swims to where I'm sitting by the edge of the hot tub. Close enough to touch, but he doesn't reach out and close the gap between us. "And now I want to know what you're thinking."

Nope. No way am I going to tell him that for a split second, an image flashed into my head of all the things he and I could spend the night doing. We are married after all.

"I'm thinking that it's time to go jump in the pool." I stand and grab my clothes and shoes and phone before I head toward one of the pools. I drop my stuff on an empty chair and jump in without looking to see if he is behind me.

"Annie." I hear his voice as I come up out of the water. He's a foot away from me but not touching me.

He knows better than to touch me when I'm not expecting it.

"Sam," I say as I wipe water out of my eyes.

There's so much we need to talk about. About the future. About our marriage. But I move toward him in the water and his arms go around me. His hands on my hips. I wrap my arms around his neck.

"What are we doing?" he asks in a voice that sounds oddly strangled.

"Having fun?" I say it like a question.

He shakes his head and goes to pull away, but I pull him closer.

"Kiss me," I whisper. He freezes. My mind is thrown back in time to the night before I left New York, when I asked him to kiss me, only this time, I'm different. He's different, and this time, I'm truly ready to kiss my husband and all that comes with it. I don't want to just have fun, I want the real deal. Even if the only person I'm ready to admit that to is myself.

"What?"

"Kiss me, Sam," I say again and this time, he does.

I'm so much shorter than him, but in the pool it doesn"t really matter. It's nearly 9 p.m. and there aren't many people here. I close my eyes and melt into the kiss.

His lips are soft and slow and warm. It reminds me of the kiss he gave me at the courthouse the day we got married. Until it doesn"t.

He deepens the kiss, pulling me closer to him, I wrap my legs around his waist, and he sighs my name against my lips.

It nearly undoes me.

I break away from him, though our foreheads are still touching. "Sam," I whisper.

"Yes, sunshine?" His voice is deep and raspy.

"I think I'm ready for bed now."

He nods once, and then he's pulling away and hopping out of the pool. My heart dips to my belly as I watch him run a towel over his hair. I get out more slowly and he wraps my towel tightly around my shoulders. We don't talk as we head up to our room.

The door clicks shut behind us and I feel goosebumps cover my skin as the cold air from the AC hits me.

"I'm not ready for more than kissing." My voice shakes, but not from the cold. I don't want to disappoint him, but I'm not ready for more. Maybe someday, but I don't even know if that's possible. My therapist told me that with the right person, it will be someday. That being with someone who you truly love and care about will feel different than everything did with Mitch, who just took and took and took.

He gives me a look from across the room that is so soft and tender that my heart cracks wide open and I just want to give him the world. "Kissing you is my favorite thing."

I feel like the words should be sarcastic in some way, because this is Sam, who tends to make a joke out of everything. But he's serious.

I nod. "I'm going to put dry clothes on."

"I'll be here." He gestures to the room.

My heart pounds in my chest. I don't know when I last felt this way, if I've ever felt this way. I feel nervous but excited. I'm not nervous about being with him or worried that he'll try something. I'm nervous about what all of this means and where we go from here. But tonight, I want to get out of my head and stop overthinking everything.

I change quickly before heading back out in the main room. He changed while I was in the bathroom and now he's wearing his gray sweats and a worn T-shirt from Estes Park. I wonder when he went there.

I pause awkwardly halfway between the bathroom and the couch where he is sitting. "Hi."

"Come here," he says in a reverent and awed voice as he holds out his hand to me.

I want to run to him, but I force myself to walk. I don't want to seem overeager. His hand wraps around mine and I fall against him on the couch. My legs go over his lap and he wraps an arm around me and I lay my head on his shoulder.

We're quiet for a moment as he holds me. The same way he held me that night he found me in the shower.

"I love the way you look at me," I say, breaking the silence.

"Yeah?" he asks. "And how exactly do I look at you?"

"Like I'm the only person in the world you can see. Like I'm the best thing in your life and you can't relax until you've found me in a room." Like he loves me.

Sam pulls me a little closer. "If I told you that you are the only person in the world that I want to see, would you believe me?"

I look up at him and our noses brush. Neither of us pull away. "Yes."

He closes the distance between us again and brushes his lips against mine. "I could spend forever kissing you."

His confession makes me warm all over as he deepens the kiss, pulling me fully onto his lap. I run my fingers through his long, curly hair and sigh as his fingers move up and down my back, his touch so light I should barely notice them but it's like he's set fire to all of my nerve endings.

As I lose myself to his kiss, I can't help but think that I could probably spend my life kissing him forever too.

At some point, the kissing slows and we fill the quiet with stories from the past six months. I tell him all about Hannah and how she's the friend I never expected but the one I needed. I tell him how I still haven't told my mom that I'm back in Colorado, because I don't know how to talk to her as an adult without her making me feel like I'm somehow used or broken because of what happened with Mitch.

I confess that I haven't been thrilled about coming to Maui for Noah's wedding, but that having him here makes it easier for me.

"It's been so hard to be without you in New York," he tells me quietly. "I quit YouTube."

This makes me sit up. "You what?"

"I'm done with the vlogging life." He pulls me back against him, our fingers threading together again. "It's time I settle down."

"Yeah?" I ask. I know he means with me, and for the first time, the thought doesn't make me want to run. I want it too.

"Yeah. And I didn't know you were in Colorado, but I was already planning on heading back out there until I figured things out. But now I'll be there, with you."

"I like the sound of that." I reach up and touch his beard. He kisses me again and I melt into him.

At some point, we move from the couch to the bed because I"m so exhausted I can barely keep my eyes open.

"How are you still so awake?" I ask. "It's like almost four in the morning in New York, doesn't your body feel it?" I'm feeling it, it's nearly two in the morning in Colorado.

I feel him press his lips against my hair. "Probably. But I've been wishing for this since I was seventeen, so I'm very awake."

I give him a squeeze and curl into him more. "I'm so glad I'm your husband," I say through a yawn. "I mean that you're my husband."

I feel his deep chuckle. "Well, wife, I think it's time for you to get some sleep."

He flips off the lamp and plunges us into darkness.

"And you're sure this is okay?" I ask. Even before Mitch, it seemed like all any guy ever wanted was to get in my bed and have their way with me, which is another reason why I stayed away from dating.

"This is more than okay, sunshine. If I died tomorrow, I would die a happy man."

"Please don't die," I say. I stop fighting to keep my eyes open.

"I'm not planning it," he murmurs. "Not anytime soon."

I lift myself up, which takes more effort than I realize it would because I'm so close to sleep, and I kiss his cheek.

"Goodnight, Sam."

"Goodnight, sunshine."

And then I fall asleep wrapped in my husband's arms.