Nothing.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Sean grimaced and reached for the cool detachment that had served him so well in the past. He couldn’t find it. “That’s a wrap.” He spun on his heel and headed for his SUV.
“Wait,” Rupert called, his voice rising excitedly. “The door. It’s opening.”
Sean turned, afraid to even hope.
The brewery door opened and Natalie walked out. She took three steps and stopped. Her nose looked a lot like Rudolph’s, she clutched a tissue box to her chest, and she looked breathtakingly beautiful.
He didn’t think. He just ran. Not away from his past this time, but toward his future.
She collapsed against him and he wrapped his arms around her.
He buried his face in her hair and breathed in her honeysuckle scent. “I didn’t think you were going to come out.”
“It took some time.” She looked up at him, her blue eyes watery behind her black–framed glasses. “I don’t have a flowchart for this situation.”
The fact that he’d made her cry punched him in the gut. He wiped a tear away with his thumb, wishing he could make sure they never fell again. “I don’t think love works like that.”
She shook her head. “No, but that’s okay.”
He had so much to make up for, so much to say that it ate away at him. “I’m sorry about—”
Silencing him with a finger to his lips, she raised up on her tiptoes, stopping just short of his mouth. “No matter what your name is, you’ll always be the man I love.”
“I love you, too,” he whispered against her lips.
“I know, you just told the whole world.” She giggled. “You don’t always say a lot, but when you do, you make a hell of a statement.”
“That I do.” He lowered his lips to hers and the world faded away until it was just them.
They shouldn’t work. He was the chaos to her everything–in–its–place mentality—but they did. A little sweet, a little sour, they came together and made each other better.
Rupert’s excited whisper broke through the haze. “Are you getting this, Phil?”
“Yep,” the camera operator responded.
Making sure not to lose contact with Natalie’s lips, Sean raised his hand and blocked the camera lens.
In the background, the reporter chuckled. “And that, folks, is a real–life Hollywood ending. Reporting from the Sweet Salvation Brewery, this is Rupert Crowley wishing each of you your very own happily ever after.”