om what I could tell.
C train. I was on the right track. The train was arriving.
Suddenly, I saw him. He was standing back from the train, backpack on, suitcase next to him. He looked angry and sad.
And gorgeous. God, he was just the hottest man ever.
“Maddox!” I yelled, as I maneuvered around an elderly woman with a cane, trying my hardest not to jostle her. “Maddox!”
He turned.
We locked eyes.
I was five feet away and it might as well have been a hundred. Every step was agony as he watched me, jaw set.
When I finally reached him, I just stood there for a second trying to regain my breath. I was panting and had a stitch in my side. I bent over slightly and held my finger up to indicate I needed a second. Why did that never happen to the star in movies? I was eating a lung.
“Savannah, what are you doing?” he asked.
I stood back up and pushed my wet hair back, shivering. “I love you,” I said, because that seemed like a good lead in and I didn’t have a better one. I just needed to spill my guts. “I love you and I don’t want you to go. I’m sorry I panicked but I want to be with you, for now, for forever.”
His reaction wasn’t quite what I expected. His nostrils flared but he just asked, “Why? What is different from last night?”
My assumption had been he would just open his arms and accept me. He was a tough audience and it was clear I’d really hurt him. I needed to make this super clear. I scrambled for the right words.
“I started thinking about you and what you said—that I don’t get to tell you how you feel. You’re right. That wasn’t fair to you. You know what else? Your producer was wrong. You are actually the most romantic man I’ve ever met.”
That got a reaction. He scoffed a little.
But I continued on, dogged and determined. “Rooftop dinners are for guys out to impress. You know what’s romantic? Getting up at 3 a.m. to help me with a crying baby that isn’t yours. Romantic is making me a cauliflower pizza that you think smells like socks. Romantic is having silent sex so we don’t wake the baby. It’s dancing with me at Chelsea Pier with your suit jacket wrapped around me because I have stains on my dress.” I splayed my hands across his strong chest. “It’s your amazing ability to always put me and Sully ahead of yourself and how you stay calm and reassuring when I’m neurotic. That’s romantic, Maddox Malone. You can’t tell me otherwise.”
He was softening. He touched my hair, my cheek. “Why do you look like you’ve fallen in the river?” he murmured.
“It’s pouring.” I was wet and my clothes were uncomfortable and I was cold but I wasn’t leaving until he gave me some kind of answer. “And I ran twenty blocks to tell you that I love you and you’ve said exactly nothing about that.”
Drastic action was required. I always talked about a grand gesture. Time to stand by my convictions. Wobbling a little, I went down on a knee and took his hand. “Will you be my fifth first date?”
His jaw worked. “Savannah. Get off the floor.” He tugged my hand, and pulled me up. He cupped my cheeks and kissed me, a sweet, yet sensual kiss. “I love you too,” he said. “I will be your fifth and final first date. I am one hundred percent in. Forever.”
Relief and happiness flooded through me.
“That was always my plan, you know,” he said. “When I said I was picking out a fifth date for you I always meant it to be me.”
“So much for friends with benefits,” I said, gleefully, throwing my arms around his neck. “Whoops.”
“Now let’s really give you the ending you want,” he said.
I let out a startled laugh when he wrapped an arm under my butt and lifted me up. I found myself tossed over his shoulder. He held me with exactly zero effort on his part like I weighed nothing. I shrieked and held on for dear life, loving every single second of it.
“I’m taking you home.” Maddox carried me down the platform. “Roll the credits.”
Giddy, bouncing on him, I looked around me at everyone. A few people were watching, most looked unconcerned or disinterested. I couldn’t have cared less what anyone thought.
I’d gotten my perfect happily ever after and I was never letting it go.
Epilogue
“Jana sent me the link,” I told Savannah as we stood on the platform overlooking the skating rink. “Let’s look at it together.” I held my phone in front of us and made the video bigger. Then I hit play.