My mom used to tell me that nothing worth having in life came easy. Or cheap.
I’d never realized how true those words were until now. This hadn’t come easy. It felt like it had cost me almost everything I had to give. But I knew he was worth having.
I knew he’d been worth the hard work, worth the fight, worth the cost.
Matt Adams was worth it all.
The journey that had led me to this realization had taken years, and the price of accepting it had been dear. Three lives had been uprooted by it. Three lives had been permanently affected by me realizing what I’d really known all along—I might have wanted them both in my life, but there was only one I couldn’t live without.
The rain had finished the job of drenching me a while ago as I stood on the beach, having a heart-to-heart with the dark ocean. It was funny how a silent conversation with an inanimate object could reveal so much. I guessed silence was sometimes the only way to hear what your heart had been trying to tell you all along.
The beach was empty—the late hour and a torrential downpour had a way of doing that—but I couldn’t imagine being anywhere else. I was right where I needed to be. The answers I’d been chasing for the past few days had been right here, waiting for me to accept them.
I finally had.
It was the same beach Matt and I had snorkeled from, and I found myself smiling at the memory of him emerging from that mobile changing room, trying to be the picture of confidence as he strutted into the water in a patch of python-print fabric. All of my memories of Matt were like that—drawing smiles when reflected upon. It had been obvious, so obvious, but I’d been so very blind.
Because of it, I’d hurt them both. I’d do anything I could to make it up to them, but I guessed only one would allow me to. The other was lost to me in all ways. Jacob was the price I’d paid for Matt, and it seemed unfair that one had cost me the other.
The rain was coming down like every cloud up there had just opened up, and it was so dark, I was lucky to see what was a few feet in front of me, but I knew the moment he found me. I felt the moment he saw me. He was as much a part of me as I was a part of him, our bond breaking through the metaphysical.
“Come on. Let’s get you out of the storm.” Matt’s voice surrounded me before I could see him.
A few moments later, he came into view. He was walking funny and he was barely recognizable. One eye was sealed shut, the other swollen, his bottom lip busted open as a mix of blood and rain trickled from it. He was still shirtless, but he’d pulled on his jeans. I’d never seen him like this, but as he kept coming closer, his hand reaching out for me, I knew he’d never been so perfect in my eyes. He’d come for me, he’d found me, he’d waited for me . . . he’d saved me.
“Why? I’m not afraid of the storm. It can’t touch me.” I angled toward him, lifting my hand to capture his. “You’ve always been my shelter from the storm. You’ve been my stronghold keeping me safe from the rest of the world even when I didn’t know it was you. Your walls might have been invisible, but they were invincible.”
Matt swallowed, hobbling one last step closer. “Maggie.”
I nodded. “Maggie.”
When his arm lifted so he could slide my wet hair over my shoulder, he winced but didn’t stop. “What did she tell you?”
My arm looped around his waist gently as I stared up at him. Bloody. Broken. Bruised. He was so damn beautiful it hurt. “Everything.”
Matt didn’t say anything. He just stood there, his fingers combing through my hair, seeming to melt into the bend of my arm around him.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked.
The skin between his brows creased. “Because it didn’t matter who saved you that night, just that you were okay. I didn’t care who you thought was making you happy, just that you were.”
I didn’t know I’d been hollow until his words filled every empty space and dark corner inside me.
His hand molded behind my neck, his thumb brushing along my hairline and tracing the bandage covering my cut. “How can you forgive me? How can you ever trust me again after what I did?”
It took me a moment to realize what he was talking about. All I could think about was all of the ways he’d earned my trust, everything he’d done for me, selflessly and endlessly.
“You made a split-second decision at the wedding, Matt. I can’t blame you for that. You were trying to do the right thing.”
His head shook, sending rain falling like diamonds from the ends of his hair. “Not the wedding day.”
My other hand lifted to his face. “You were drinking. We both were. We’ve been over this.”
“I might have had a few drinks, but when I leaned in, when I put my hands on you and drew you to me, that wasn’t the alcohol. That was me. All me.” His forehead creased. “You trusted me, and I betrayed that trust.”
When I blinked at him, rain spilled from my lashes. “I knew it was you.” I had to say it again. Louder. “I knew it was you, Matt.” I paused to make sure he’d heard me. To make sure he understood what I was saying. “I might have been afraid to admit it to myself, but I knew. Deep inside, I knew it.”
He watched me for a minute, searching my face for any signs of doubt. He wouldn’t find any. His arm slid behind my neck as he pulled me to him and stiffly wound his other arm behind my back. He turned us slightly so the rain was pelting his back instead of mine. We stood like that for a while, our toes in the wet sand, our bodies pressed together, our arms clinging to each other.
“I need to tell you something.” My head lifted from his chest so I could look up at him. “Something I’ve been waiting to say for twenty years.”
He shook his head, a smile starting to form. “Me first.”
Not a chance.
“I love you,” I blurted, so loud and fast it surprised him.
That look of surprise was chased away by something else. Another emotion that made my heart stop. “Again,” he whispered.
I lifted onto my toes so I was closer to his eye level. “I love you.” I pressed my lips to his.
His eyes were still closed from our kiss, his hands drawing me closer. “Again.”
I leaned in, dropping my mouth outside of his ear. “I love you.”
His chest moved against mine, our breaths coming into sync. “Don’t stop saying that. Ever.”
My eyebrow lifted when he opened his eyes. “That might present a challenge.”
“One I’m sure you’ll find a way to overcome.” He winked, his fingers brushing across the seam of my lips. “Those words, coming from your mouth, when your eyes are on mine, that’s the reason. Right there, those three words, that’s the answer.”
My head tipped as I gently touched his swollen lip. “The answer to what?”
He stared at me like it should have been obvious. “My question for existence. My reason for living. My explanation for twenty years of waiting.”
“Oh yeah. That little reason.”
He prodded at my sides, making me laugh. When I squirmed against him, he just picked me up, tying my legs behind him.
“You’re broken. Everywhere,” I added when he grimaced after adjusting his footing. “You need a doctor—one other than yourself—and a good night of sleep before you start tossing me around.”
“First things first.”
“Pain meds, then doctor?” I guessed, fastening my hands above his shoulders.
He sighed, then his face got serious. Really serious. My throat instantly went dry.
“I know this might seem like I’m rushing things, but I’ve been waiting two decades to ask you this question.” He didn’t pause, didn’t clear his throat, didn’t look away. He didn’t um and er and stall the hell out of it. There was only confidence in his voice, matching the look on his face.
“Matt,” I whispered, not sure anymore if the drops running down my face were rain.
“I’m going to keep it simple and sweet because if you haven’t figured out why I’m asking you this question, I haven’t done my job.” He tipped his head back up at me, his eyes waiting for mine. The moment my eyes met his, he smiled. “Will you marry me?”
Definitely not raindrops. Nope. At least not all of them. My hands moved from his shoulders to his face as I lowered my face above his. “Technically, I already married you.”
He chuckled, shaking his head. “Will you marry me again? This time with my name on the actual marriage certificate?”
My lips met his. Then again. He tasted like sweat and rain and even a bit of blood. He tasted like the fight of my life. The fight I’d won. “Yes.”
“Are you sure?” He started to spin slow circles on the beach, grinning at me like he had so many times before—like I was his reason. His answer. “It’s a big commitment, a lifelong one from what I’ve heard. Don’t you want to take a few minutes to think about it?”
My hand found his left hand and knitted our fingers together while he managed to hold me with one arm. He’d taken off his ring like I had. We’d both let go of what was keeping us apart so we could hold on to what had kept us together. Each other.
“I don’t need another minute to think,” I said. “I’ve been waiting twenty years to give you your answer.”
“That answer being?” He turned his ear toward me, waiting.
“No. Absolutely not.” I managed to keep a straight face right up until Matt turned his mock-wounded face toward me. “Yes. The answer is yes. The answer is always yes.”
He kissed me again, this one not coming to a foreseeable end. He stood there in the rain, holding me while we kissed until both of us were gasping for breath. The moment I sucked in a deep breath, I wanted to kiss him all over again.
“Can you believe this is how it went?” he asked, his chest moving fast against mine. “What it took for us to be together?”
I thought about that for a moment. Condensing the countless years we’d spent together into a few moments, I thought about everything we’d been through to get us to this perfect moment in time. After all that, I’d believe anything. After all this, I knew anything was possible.
“I married the wrong brother,” I said, dropping my forehead to his. Matt was the one. He always had been. He always would be. He was my Mister Right. “But he turned out to be the right one.”
THE END