Chapters (48)
- 1. One
- 2. Two
- 3. Three
- 4. Four
- 5. Five
- 6. Six
- 7. Seven
- 8. Eight
- 9. Nine
- 10. Ten
- 11. Eleven
- 12. Twelve
- 13. Thirteen
- 14. Fourteen
- 15. Fifteen
- 16. Sixteen
- 17. Seventeen
- 18. Eighteen
- 19. Nineteen
- 20. Twenty
- 21. Twenty-One
- 22. Twenty-Two
- 23. Twenty-Three
- 24. Twenty-Four
- 25. Twenty-Five
- 26. Twenty-Six
- 27. Twenty-Seven
- 28. Twenty-Eight
- 29. Twenty-Nine
- 30. Thirty
- 31. Thirty-One
- 32. Thirty-Two
- 33. Thirty-three
- 34. Thirty-Four
- 35. Thirty-Five
- 36. Thirty-Six
- 37. Thirty-Seven
- 38. Thirty-Eight
- 39. Thirty-Nine
- 40. Forty
- 41. Forty-One
- 42. Forty-Two
- 43. Forty-three
- 44. Epilogue
- Afterword
- Also by
- Acknowledgments
- About Author
I poured us both a cup of coffee, and we sat in the living room waiting for my parents to get up. I knew Mom planned to have everyone over for lunch like usual, so we cuddled under a blanket on the couch and put on Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. The last two weeks hardly seemed real, like I would wake up back in my small apartment in Florida and that Finn would be a fictional being that my mind conjured in a fever dream. But I was cuddled next to him, my head happily laid on his chest with our arms wrapped around each other as he whispered sweet nothings in my ear and trailed a light hand down my back. My hair was a knotted mess on my head, and my makeup was completely gone. But Finn didn’t care, simply looked at me like I was the most beautiful girl in the world.
I was reminded of something he’d said before.
“If you were mine, you’d never wonder how perfect you are.”
The memory had me smiling, and I leaned further into his hold.
After getting no sleep in almost twenty-four hours, we fell asleep in a nest of fuzzy comforters, and I felt like I was on cloud nine.
***
“I knew he would bring her back to me.”
“Shh. Be still, you’ll wake them up.”
“It’s almost noon, Denise. It’s time they get up anyway.”
“Do you guys think I should grow a mullet?”
“Hush, Matt.”
The familiar loud whispers woke me from my dreams, which featured backpacking across Europe with Finn. I blinked open my eyes and rubbed them, finding Mom, Dad, Matt, and Taylor standing over me and Finn. Mom’s phone faced us, obviously taking pictures of us cuddled together and passed out.
“Mmm. What?” Finn sat up next to me, and I was sure we looked like a pair of sleepy toddlers woken up for snack time.
“Get up, love birds. It’s noon, and you’re taking up the whole couch.”
I shrugged the warm blankets off of us and stretched my arms up. Taylor grinned so wide her cheeks had to hurt, and she glanced suggestively between Finn and me.
I retreated to my room to get ready for our Christmas Eve lunch while I left Finn in the living room with my family, like a sheep in a room full of wolves. They would no doubt ask him a million questions about how he got me back here. I’d be willing to bet he would say something like, “I guess she just couldn’t deal without me.”