“I’m sorry,” she said, and she kissed him again, trying to tell him with her mouth and her arms around him that he’d had it wrong—had her wrong—and so had she. “I’m sorry.” She kissed his jaw and his nose, the space between his eyebrows. His closed eyelids.
She’d known this about him—known it from the day they met. His worst fear, that he would fuck up, let down his guard, and lose what meant the most to him.
“I wasn’t leaving you,” she told him. “I’m not ever going to leave you.”
He exhaled, softening into her body.
He held her, and the surf chased itself up the beach, over their toes.
“Whatever happens, Tony—and I don’t know what’s going to happen, but whatever it is—I want you with me.”
“You mean it.”
It wasn’t quite a question. More of a demand that she promise.
“I do. I swear.”
He let go of her then. Took both her hands in his and spread them out to the sides. “Amber Clark Mazzara. Look down.”
She looked down. She saw wet feet. She looked from side to side and saw her hands clasped in Tony’s.
“I’m looking,” she said. “This is who you are.”
“Who?”
“You.”
“That’s not actually all that helpful.”
But she smiled when she said it. Because it was, kind of.
It was helpful to know that he saw something when he looked at her. That he saw her, believed in her. That he didn’t want to lose her.
Tony met her eyes and grinned. “Sorry. We’ll work on it, okay? You’ll have to make another list, and I’ll be your coach. I’ll sit next to you and say things like, ‘What about opera?’ and ‘Have you considered an Ultimate Frisbee league?’ ”
“That won’t help. At all.”
“I know it won’t, but you’ll get annoyed with me, and then you’ll be all fired up and realize you do actually know what you want. It’s only that you haven’t given yourself permission to consider it.”
“You think so?”
“I know so. Because you’re my wife, and I love you, and I wouldn’t have married you if you weren’t also the smartest, most capable, most interesting, hottest chick I’d ever met.”
Amber rolled her eyes. “Laying it on a little thick there, Stevie.”
He dropped one hand and lifted the other above her head and nudged it, urging her to spin around in a circle. It was silly. She felt silly. The water rushed over her feet, then back, sucking away the sand beneath her heels, and she spun until she got dizzy and he caught her.
Tony caught her. And grabbed her ass.
She felt fast and alive, awake to possibility.
She felt as though they could do this. That they had always been able to do this.
“Your neck is blushing,” he said.
“Is not.”
“I like your new haircut.”