I’m alone with my thoughts and my feelings and they are at war with each other. I want to run again. I want to take Gabe’s truck and go to the airport and fly back to L.A. on Ollie’s private jet and write the article and lie to everyone about what happened this weekend.

I slide across the seat and put my hands on the wheel. It’s warm. I can still feel what Gabe left behind. The warmth from his hands. The smell of his hair.

It would be easy to leave.

I think of everything that will be said if I stay. Of the articles, the comments, the smug confirmation that I’m exactly as unprofessional and undeserving as people thought.

But I realize—for the first time in a long time—that I don’t care.

I don’t care what people will say.

I know what I want.

I take the keys off the dash.

The wind fights me as I shove the door open, my scarf once again left behind.

I run into the white flurry of snow and hit something. Someone.

Gabe’s arms come around me. Steadying me for a moment before letting go.

There’s a bark and I realize that Teddy is with us too, her tail whapping against my leg as she circles us.

“I was coming to get you,” I say.

“Me too,” he says. “I forgot something.”

He takes my hand.

My heart goes up even higher in my throat. I’m afraid it will fall out onto the sidewalk if I try to say anything.

“In the midst of my very dramatic and completely unnecessary cinematic gesture, I forgot to say the one thing I should have said first.” Gabe looks at me.

My breath fogs in the air between us.

“I love you,” he says.

Our fingers are entwined, our palms pressed together. I imagine that I can feel his heartbeat there, but I’m pretty sure it’s just my own, beating harder and faster than ever before.

“I love your clever mind. I love your hair and your butt. I love how fucking brilliant you are, how bold and how brave. I love that Teddy loves you. And I’m pretty sure that my family loves you too. I love your ideas, your stories. And mostly I love your very big eyes and your very smart mouth.”

I swallow my heart down.

“And my dumb questions?”

He smiles at that. His hand is on my elbow.

“Everything,” he says. “I love everything about you.”

I let my heart settle in my chest. Where it belongs.

“I love you too,” I say. “Everything about you.”

Then I plant my face directly into the spot where his neck meets his shoulder. I get it very wet. He lets me cry, the two of us standing there in the snow and the cold.

“Stay,” Gabe says when I’m done.

“Here?”