Looking around, I add, “It seems you have found success with it.” I grip the top of the chair nearby and tilt my head. “I had no doubt you’d find success in anything you tried.”

“Thanks. I could say the same for you. Look at what you’ve achieved. Everything you dreamed.”

“Not everything, but one of the biggest.”

“What else do you dream about, Lark?” The sun hasn’t even set, but I’m feeling a little tipsy.

I have a feeling it’s more the company than the whiskey. “Sharing my life with someone special. How about you?”

He exhales, the warmth of his eyes coating me. “Do you still believe in destiny?”

My breathing deepens, and I take a sip to distract myself from how he affects me. “I still believe.”

“I met my soul mate at twenty-two,” he says, his eyes searching mine. “If I were to ever share my life again, it will only be with you.”

I’ve become acquainted with the racing of my heart around him, but this time, it halts entirely. He closes the distance between us, setting his drink on the table, coming so near when he dips his head toward my ear. Sliding his arm around my waist, he whispers, “No apartment, city, or place could ever replace the home I found in you.” Then he adds, “Breathe, baby.”

I suck in a breath just as he leans back. Our bodies are still pressed together, his arm still holding me tight. We tilt our heads enough to see each other’s eyes. I’m breathing, but barely as he steals it all over again. I whisper, “What do we do about that?”

He smirks and gives me a wink. “Fuck fate and make our own rules from now on.”

I kiss him before he has the chance to kiss me. Wrapping my arms around his neck like a life preserver, I hold on to him like anger once held on to me. Unrelenting. I kiss him until our bodies mold together and our tongues touch, and then begin a slow and seductive tango.

The stove is turned off, and clothes fall to the floor as we pass the TV during the third inning and work our way into the bedroom. We kiss in a frenzy of hands and knees, legs and arms—feeling, connecting, admiring—falling to the bed and back into each other.

We make love with the shades wide open and no covers to hide any part of us. He stares into my eyes the first time he pushes in and dips his head when fully seated. A pause as if he can’t catch his breath extends, and then he lifts, pushing my hair back from my face. “I never stopped loving you, Lark.”

His words sink into my heart, and I feel their raw honesty. It’s then that I also realize that no matter how much I thought I hated him, I only felt that strongly because I loved him so much. I still do. So much. “I love you,” I reply, not worried about saying it first or too soon. I tell him how I feel, refusing to waste any more time on grudges and missed opportunities. I won’t give air to the pains of the past and mistakes we both made. I caress his face and kiss him. “I love you, Harbor. I always will.”