Julia sighed. “It makes it hard for me to understand. I don’t know how to read you. I don’t know what to believe.”

“I know that now I’m doing something else unexpected by showing up here like this. But I hope it’s different this time. I want to show you that I’m with you, and I mean it. I want to be with you.” He took a deep breath and let it all out, and with it the hurt and loneliness he’d held on to his whole time on the road. “I’m here now to show you what that means.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

Oh God. That was what the voice inside Julia’s head kept repeating. Not exactly helpful, but it was all she had. Oh. Fucking. God.

It should have been impossible, some fantasy she’d dreamed up in her loneliest hours late at night. But it was real. It was happening.

He was here.

And it felt so perfect, so indescribably right to have his fingers circling her palm. Maybe all those months were nothing but a precursor, giving them both the time and distance to know they were ready for this. So that when he finally stopped standing by the kitchen counter and came over to her, his touch, his kiss, told her that no matter where in the world they both were, they were home.

But it was still crazy. It was like they’d skipped ahead five months and he wanted to pick up right back where they’d been.

“Blake,” she started, but when he wrapped his arms around her, she found the words wouldn’t come.

“I know that I’m saying a lot,” Blake said, as though reading her mind. “But I want to be here. I want to be with you. I want to give us a try.”

“I need to ask you something,” she said before she could get too swept away. The words gnawed at her. She didn’t want to address it, but she knew that if she didn’t get it out now, it would keep hanging over her, and she couldn’t do that. She’d let things slide without voicing her feelings, and if she’d learned anything these five lonely months, it was that she wasn’t going to do that with Blake ever again.

Blake pulled away but it was only to see her better as he said, “Of course.”

“Your new show that you’re working on—who’s going to play the leads?”

“I don’t know yet,” he said, looking confused by her question. “There’ll be auditions, but I don’t want to be part of the team that picks. Someone else will know the right players. I want them to go with their gut.”

Julia took a breath and asked outright what she’d meant. “So not Kelley, even though she’s so good in The Everlastings.”

Blake’s eyebrow jumped. “You actually watched the episodes I sent you?”

Immediately the heat rose to her face. “More like every season. Twice.”

His eyes widened.

“Okay, you caught me.” She sighed. “Maybe three times.”

There was a silence. “Wow,” Blake said. “That’s…a lot.”

She winced. “I know.” And then, because he’d come all this way and been so honest with her, she admitted the real reason she’d watched it so many times. “I like falling asleep to it playing in the background. It feels like I’m hearing your voice.”

This time she was the one who reached for him, running her fingers up his hand, his arm, feeling the faint blond hairs and the trace of his forearms where the muscles disappeared under his sleeve.

Blake covered her hand with his.

“Kelley’s not going to be in it. I’m handing over The Everlastings to another writer. I don’t know how long she and Liam will stay on it, or what they’ll be working on next, but the truth is I don’t really care. I want them to be happy, to find roles that they like. Whatever they want from their careers. But for me?” He shook his head. “I want actors who are there to work. I’m not worried about anything else.”

Right away Julia could hear the different way he spoke about Kelley from when they’d been in Brazil. Then, she’d still felt him wince at the pain.

But now it was as though he were talking about something that had happened to somebody else, a long time ago. She knew now in a way she hadn’t before that he was really over her. Everything in his life had moved on.

And in hers. When she thought of Danny and Amy, nothing in her stabbed at the knowledge that he had someone else on his arm. If anything the feeling was akin to what Blake described when he saw Jamie find happiness with somebody new. That she’d had that, once, and let it go. Whenever she closed her eyes, there was one person she pictured, someone who had been far away and was now somehow, inexplicably, sitting right in her kitchen, wrapping her in his arms.

“But, Blake.” She leaned close and shook her head into the crook of his neck, inhaling the scent of him, the surprising softness of his skin. “You live in Australia. I live here.”

“I can live here.”

“What?” She tilted her head to look up at him.

His arms were still around her, running his fingers through her hair. “I can be here,” he whispered into her neck.

“But your show,” she started—didn’t he have his own plans?

“I can write anywhere. I can try to find an American producer. I can—I don’t know, Julia. But we can make it work.”

She felt him hold her tighter, grazing his lips along her neck, up to her ear, taking his time. Like he knew he had the time. Like he knew he could have forever to kiss her because neither of them were going anywhere.

“I also thought—” he said, but then he stopped and Julia thought that if it was something bad then she didn’t want him to say it because it might make him stop holding her, and want to pull his lips from her skin, and she didn’t think she could handle that. Not now, not again, not after she’d finally decided to let her heart open to him.

“What?” Her body trembled against his.

His hands found the nape of her neck, fingers buried into her hair.

“I thought since you have some time off…if you’re not doing anything this summer…” he began.

Oh.

The trembling stopped.

She brought her lips to his ear.

“Yes,” she whispered.

“You don’t even know what I was going to say.”

“I do. And you know the answer. It’s still yes.” She relaxed all the way into him. “With you, I always want to say yes.”

He held her tighter. “I haven’t gotten my return ticket yet.”

She bit her lip, and then without fear, without uncertainty, she went for it. “Then get two.”

“Do you really think you can come with me for the summer?”

“If you want me to.”

His kiss could have been answer enough, but still he whispered, “I want you to.”

But Julia was still Julia, ever practical, and she pressed a finger to his lips to stop him. “I can’t make any promises, though. I can’t just…up and move like that.”

“No,” he said emphatically, kissing along her jawbone, her chin, her cheek—anywhere but her lips where she wanted him. “I’d never ask that of you. I just want to spend time with you. Here, there—it doesn’t matter. I want you to come with me for a little bit, while you have the time, and then we can figure things out from there. We can be together and still take it day by day.”

Her lips searched his, demanding the kiss he was keeping from her. “We can go anywhere.”

He made a face. “Not anywhere cold.”

She laughed. “That’s okay, I don’t think they need many math teachers in Antarctica.”

“I don’t have any script ideas set there, either.”

“Something tells me you can come up with anything.” Then she added, taking his hand, “I have a few last-minute things to do in the classroom, but stay with me until I can wrap things up around here.”

“I have a hotel room,” he said. “I can stay there as long as I need. I don’t want to move too fast. I don’t want to be in the way.”

Julia hooked her fingers through his belt loops. “Please don’t go away tonight.”