“It’s funny you should say that when, exactly a week ago, I was drowning myself in cheap wine in my tub, convincing myself that I didn’t deserve anything.” My cheeks grew hot when I made the admission. It sounded so silly now, but that had really been how I’d felt about it in that moment. “Now here you are, one week later, telling me I deserve the best money can buy. I’m still not sure I agree, but if you insist, I can try to get used to it.”
“You were moping in your bath?” he asked, sounding pained. “Fuck. I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have let it drag on all week. I should’ve been at your door first thing that next morning.”
“I didn’t tell you to make you feel bad,” I said gently. “I told you because I’m trying to be open about my thoughts, and that was what I was thinking about. Since we’re on the subject, though, I didn’t drink the good wine in my apartment that night because I told myself I didn’t deserve it. The good wine is still there. So is the tub. Do you want to come back to my place later and not mope in the bath?”
He chuckled and kissed the back of my head. “I’d love to.”
For the rest of our cruise, we drank the champagne and ate the food, kissing and cuddling but not letting it go any further than that. Since we’d already decided he would be coming home with me, he gave my address to his driver when we got back to the dock.
On the drive back to my place, he kept his arms around me and I was dizzy with happiness about how the night had turned out. A week ago, I hadn’t thought it would be possible for us to get to where we were right then.
I’d honestly thought it was over, yet here we were, talking about how we could make it work in the long term and really planning on trying. I knew it wouldn’t be easy, but I wasn’t afraid of taking on a challenge, especially not when every relationship was and always would be a challenge anyway.
Even Brit and Trevor, who were the most happily married couple I knew, had faced their fair share of challenges over the course of their relationship. She’d told me once that it was called “working at it” because that was what it was. Work.
Nothing worth having ever came easy, and being with him was definitely worth having. He was everything I’d never even known I wanted. All the more so for his flaws. As long as we were clear that I wasn’t and never would be okay with him being with other women while he was with me, I was all in on this relationship.
If the redhead really had been the last other woman, and the only one in the months before and since, which I believed she was, then we were all good. There was so much more to him than being a playboy and that was a thing of the past now.
We were also all good on the house, but we still needed to talk about that business he’d wanted to start together. Since he hadn’t mentioned it again, I didn’t know where he stood with that but I’d find out. Just not tonight.
Tonight was for us. For our relationship and for being happy that all the misunderstandings had finally been ironed out.
When we got to my apartment, I went straight to the bathroom and ran the bath. He rummaged around for that good bottle of wine and two glasses, and when he came in, I was already naked and mixing the bubble bath into the water.
He grinned, set his loot down on the side of the tub, and pulled his shirt over his head. As soon as his clothes were off, he joined me in the tub and pulled me to him again, handing over my glass of red and holding his up for a toast.
“To spending the night with my girlfriend,” he said, his eyes alive with happiness as he cocked his head. “That is what I’m doing, right? I’m spending the night? You’re not going to kick me out later?”
I clinked my glass against his, warmth filling my chest as I stared into those beautiful eyes with the knowledge that, at least for now, he wanted me and only me. “To spending the night with my boyfriend, who I will not be kicking out in the middle of the night.”
We drank, and then he kissed me, and the wine was forgotten. Eventually, after the water had gone cold and I was once again sated, I took the bottle back to the kitchen and crawled into bed with him, falling asleep in his arms and hoping that I’d get to do it a lot more often from now on.