I hadn’t called Dylan, not since the night he told me to find whatever closure I needed with Tian. It was something that needed to be talked about in person. Which is the reason I was biting on my fingernails and pacing in front of the front door, anxiously waiting for him to come home. He had texted, letting me know he was ten minutes away, and that’s when the pacing commenced.
I heard a car pull up, some goodbyes exchanged, and then the front door was opening. As soon as he dropped his bag, I launched myself at him, wrapping my legs around his waist and my arms around his neck. His hands circled around my back, and I buried my face against his shoulder, breathing him in. Tears pricked the corners of my eyes.
Dylan tightened his grip, squeezing me to him. “I missed you, gorgeous girl.”
“Not as much as I missed you,” I breathed. “You have no idea.”
“Did you find what you were looking for?” He asked, his fingers playing with the ends of my hair as he continued to hold me.
“Yes, but Dylan, what I’ve been searching for has been with me the whole time,” I said, shaking my head. “I shouldn’t have doubted for even a millisecond that Tian could offer me anything other than goodbye. I was just caught off guard and confused. And for a small moment, I questioned whether I was good enough for you, whether I could be all that you need.”
Dylan walked over to the couch, sitting down and keeping my body attached to his. He pulled back slowly, his hands moving from my back to my face, caressing my skin.
“Jade Young, you’ve always been enough for me,” he whispered, blue eyes shining as they locked onto mine. “And you’ll always be what I need.”
“I love you,” I said through a clogged throat. “So much.”
“I love you too, soulmate,” he said, lips turning up in a smile. “Always.”
“I really needed to hear that, you have no idea.”
“I’m sorry about Erin being here the other night,” he said with a sigh, sounding regretful. “I didn’t actually go to her place to work on the project. It was petty, but I was upset over the Tian news, so I told a lie.”
“Then where did you go that night? You were gone until sunrise,” I question, worry lacing my tone.
He pressed his forehead against mine. “I was at Jake’s place.”
“Jake’s?” I let my hands trail along his chest. “Dylan, you could have just told me that.”
“I know, but,” he shrugged, eyes closing for briefly. “Like I said, it was petty. I know things have been rocky with you two since college, and I reacted. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again. She and I work at the same company and we sometimes team up on projects, but she’s just a coworker. It’s messed up, but I’ve never really considered her a friend. She comes on a little strong. I mean, she isn’t a bad person, but I only have my eyes set on one person. You.”
“Me?” My body melted against his, his words reaffirming what I already knew in my heart to be true. “Thank you for that, Dylan. I knew it was just for work, but I’ve never liked the way she not-so-subtly throws herself at you.”
“Yeah, I could tell,” he laughed quietly. “You don’t exactly welcome her with open arms whenever you’re in the same room together.”
I scrunched my nose. “It was that obvious huh?”
“Yeah, but don’t worry, I get it,” he whispered against my temple, his breath fanning my skin. “I’d react the same if someone you worked with couldn’t take a hint.”
I narrowed my eyes at him, pulling away slightly. “You know about her crush on you?”
He scoffed. “Of course, and I’ve had a few conversations with her about my unreciprocated feelings.”
“So why continue to work with her?”
“Because she’s good at her job and harmless,” he said honestly. “If she weren’t, I’d be handling it differently.”
I went back to snuggling against his chest, my lips trailing light kisses along his jawline. “Always the gentleman, Dylan Conrad. You’re who other men should strive to be like.”
“Nah,” he shook his head. “Because then I’d have more competition when it came to you, and though I’d be more than willing, I’d rather avoid the caveman-like fighting.”
I laughed, my chest swelling with pride at the type of person he was.
It was ironic that my first experience with love was opposite and incomparable to what I had with Dylan. Fate had her ways, and even though, I cursed her at times, she had led me right where I belonged—to my soulmate, the person I was always supposed to end up with, even though it took a lot of heartache to get there.
“Thank you for being the best thing that’s ever happened to me,” I said softly. “I love that I can be as cheesy and open with you as I want and that you’ll return my affection tenfold.”
“I wasn’t like this before you, Jade. You bring out the best in me,” he said with a smile, blue eyes blazing with affection. “I’m better with you. That’s why if Tian would have swayed your heart somehow, then I would have fought like hell to keep you in my life. You were never going to lose me. If anything, I was afraid that you were going to leave me.”
I blinked away the tears that blurred my vision, holding his gaze. “That was never a possibility. You’re stuck with me, for better or worse, in sickness and in health…”
I paused, raising a playful brow his way. He laughed, shaking his head. “Practicing our vows, huh?”
“No practice necessary.” I grinned. “Those words are ingrained in my soul, future husband of mine. In fact, I think I’ll repeat them every day for the rest of my life. Hm, maybe I’ll even canvas them and hang them up on our bedroom wall. What do you think?”
“I think,” he said, a devious smile spreading across his handsome face. “That I love you, Jade Young, and you can put whatever you want, wherever you want, so long as you never leave me.”
“Well, that’s one thing you never have to worry about.”
I pressed my body flat against his, chest to chest, heart to heart, and pulled his lips toward mine, kissing him softly. Our lips moved slowly, and our touches grew frenzied. Dylan’s hands slid up my sides, pulling my shirt up the further he trailed, until it was discarded and forgotten somewhere on the floor.
I giggled, his fingertips grazing my skin and causing goose bumps to form.
“You. Make. Love. So easy,” I murmured against his lips. “So freaking easy.”
He pulled at my bottom lip, our mouths resuming their dance. I sighed, giving into the need to be as close to him as humanly possible.
He was the one. My one. And sometimes in order to find the one, you needed to go through a few bad non-ones first. I might not have seen it then, but the journey led me to the person I was meant to be with. It was one I would gladly go on again if it promised me the same future as the one I had now.
Love might have broken me the first time around, but I’d gladly suffer through it again. In a heartbeat. No questions asked. I’d redo it and not change a thing.