Sabrina

The wrought iron gates loom before me.

Tall spires let me peek into a world I’ve never entered.

Not just this park but what it represents: wealth, privilege, money.

A walkway cuts across the land beyond the locked gate, and gloriously high trees, bursting with bottle-green leaves, wrap their arms over the grounds, shielding those rare few who have access.

I breathe it in. It’s an enclave. A private square for the privileged.

I’ve been on the outside looking in, even though I never longed for this much. I’ve never been a girl who wanted riches showered on her. I simply wanted better choices.

Or really, I wanted choices, period.

But in the end, I wouldn’t do anything differently.

I stand by all the decisions I’ve made, including the one that brought me here tonight.

Shoes click on the sidewalk. It could be anyone—a businessman, a father, a hipster. This is a city of millions.

But what if it’s him?

I turn, and he takes my breath away.

Flynn Parker is so handsome. He’s lean and tall, and his hair flops deliciously on his forehead, and his green eyes twinkle with excitement when he sees me.

But it’s his lips I zero in on.

Those soft, wonderful lips I want on me again.

He closes the distance, and I have to go first, so as soon as he reaches me I say, “I want a do-over. I want a new beginning. I want the chance to say yes to us. It’s only been two days, and I miss you like crazy, and I can’t stand not having an excuse to see you. I want us to explore park benches and abandoned subways, and visit the Met, and kiss in the Great Hall, and go to costume parties dressed like Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio.” I draw a quick breath, then say the hardest and the easiest words. “Because I love you, Flynn Parker.”

He laughs and wraps his arms around me, rubbing his hands on my back. “Well, it’s good to see you too.” He’s grinning from ear to ear, and his eyes dance with happiness.

“I want to be with you,” I say, blurting it all out, everything. “I want to have a go at it if you’ll have me. I want to do all the things in New York with you, and you can quote poetry to me and show me pineapple math, and we won’t have to pretend we need to fact-check anything, and I can take you to the gin joint in Chelsea tomorrow night if you want.”

Smiling, he tugs me closer, aligning his body with mine. “So you can get me drunk?”

“Drunk and naked,” I say, giggling, and I’m not a giggler. But right now, I’m so damn happy even though he hasn’t said “I love you” back yet. But I’m not worried because I know he will.

This certainty—it’s worth every chance.

It’s worth the world.

He lifts his hand and runs his fingers across my barrette and over my hair. When he brushes the back of his fingers along my cheek, I melt. Cupping my face, he meets my gaze, holds it, and presses one soft kiss to my lips.

I think I’m going to die of happiness.

He breaks the kiss. “I’m madly in love with you too, Sabrina.”

Okay, now it’s official. I’m not dying. I’ve died, and I’ve gone to heaven, only better, because I’m alive, and my life is incandescent.

It’s starlight, and fireworks, and all the diamonds in the night sky.

He runs a finger over my lips. “But what made you change your mind?”

I don’t think. I don’t contemplate. I tell him the simple truth. “I missed you so much it hurt. And I want you. All of you, because you’re worth it to me.”

“You’re worth everything to me. You need to know that. I know I shouldn’t have offered you a job, and I also know there’s not much I can give you that you’ll let me give,” he says, and I smile stubbornly, nodding in acknowledgment. “But I can be there for you. Let me give you the support you need. Let me help you as you look for whatever you want next in your career. If you need an introduction to someone, I’ll do that. If you need me to get you a massage or give you a massage, I’ll do that. If you want someone to cook you dinner while you talk about your day, I’m your man. But that’s not all I can do,” he says, and mischief plays in his eyes.

“What other tricks do you have up your sleeve?” I ask, running my hand over his arm, loving the feel of his warm skin, his muscles.

“In the costume shop, you said I helped you to not think about things. You said the way I made love to you made it so you didn’t have to think at all,” he says, and I tremble as he says made love. I’m warm all over thinking about how he’ll do it to me tonight. “Let me help you that way. Let me help you whenever you need to not think.”

“Like right now?”

He laughs. “But I thought you wanted to see Gramercy Park?”

“I do. I really do. But I want you more.”

“We’ll come back, then, whenever you want.” He leans in close, brushes my hair over my ear, and whispers, “And now, like amorous birds of prey, rather at once our time devour.”

I swoon. “You can’t quote Andrew Marvell, especially when his words are all randy. I told you poetry is an instant orgasm for me.”

He smiles and gestures to the end of the block. “Let’s go to my place.”

I grab his shirt, shaking my head. “We need to go to mine.”

“But I live across the street.”

“I know, but if I go into your house, it’ll feel like a palace and I’ll want to look around and really all I want to do is have you fuck me. No distractions.”

He hails a cab, and we go to the East Village.