“So, you live with a guy.” The way Tucker says it isn’t as a question, but I know he wants an explanation.

It’s probably been an hour now since Tucker’s set ended, and we’re still up on the roof. We’ve been kissing, talking, and kissing some more.

Fine. All we’ve done is kiss, but can you blame us?

“I do,” I answer. “He showed up at Clyde’s one night back when I worked there, and—”

“Wait. Past tense. You said worked,” he interrupts. “Since when do you not work there? And where do you work now?”

“Since about three weeks or so after you left. And here. I work here now.”

“What? Why?”

I shrug. “I’m thinking of getting into the business side of music. I enjoyed pretending to be your manager, and I think it’s something I might be able to make a career out of.”

“Huh,” he says. “So. Dallas?”

“Yes. Dallas. Dall. Anyway, he came around, heard I was thinking of looking for a roommate.” I shrug. “We clicked, and he moved in almost immediately.”

“That’s it? No other info? What if he was a crazy sex pervert?”

“Well, I don’t have a penis, so I don’t think that’s a problem.”

“Really?” he says in shock. “Didn’t see that one coming.”

“Yeah, me neither. I thought he was just hitting on me at first and made Hudson come over while Dallas checked the place out just to intimidate him and make sure that wasn’t the case.”

“Our friends are assholes. Those fuckers never said a word about you working here. And Gary is now on my shit-list for not telling me.”

“If it makes you feel any better, they barely ever mentioned your name. It kind of made things easier. Besides, would it have made a difference? Would you have come back earlier?”

I peek over at Tucker, who’s looking over at the other side of the roof, staring off into the night. “No, probably not,” he says. “Honestly, I’m glad we didn’t talk during these last few months. It’s made this reunion even sweeter.”

“Is that was this is? A reunion?”

I’m terrified to know his answer, but I need to know. I have to get ready to put on my mask if it isn’t, because I honestly don’t think my heart can take it.

“I’m here to stay, if that’s what you’re asking.”

I release a sharp breath of air. Thank God.

He continues, “I’ve already talked with the tour manager, James, about it. My contract was short. Now it’s up to me to negotiate my new contract with the label if I decide to.”

“Are you going to?”

Tucker looks back over at me. “I think so. This has been amazing so far. The only thing I didn’t like was being apart from you. But again, I think it’s helped.”

“I agree,” I tell him. “And it gave us time and space to figure out what we want.”

You, Tucker. You’re what I want.

“Maura, it was never about me needing to figure it out. I’ve always wanted you, and I’ve always known that. This was us trying to find ourselves outside of Tanner and what happened with us. This was us finally doing something for ourselves,” he says, kicking my heart into overdrive. “There wasn’t a day I didn’t think about you or miss you or desperately want to be with you. But three months ago, we weren’t the versions of ourselves that we are now. We’re better. We’re stronger. We’re more…us.”

I stare down at my lap, thinking about what he just said.

“Are we, Tucker? Are we an us?”

He reaches his hand out, entwining our fingers together.

“We’ll always be an us, Maura. You can’t erase our yesterdays.”

“But you can’t predict our tomorrows, either,” I push.

“No, we can’t. But I sure as shit can stick by you through them. We’ll brave it all. Together. As an us.”

I look up at the sincerity in his voice. There’s something in his words that strikes against my heart, igniting it, bringing a spark of hope and forever with Tucker.

“I love you,” I blurt out. Tucker laughs as I bury my face in my hands. “Stop it!”

He pulls my hands down and forces my gaze to his. “I love you too, Maura. I have loved you for a long damn time. I swear the second I saw you sitting alone at Perk last year I fell in love with you. I just wish I hadn’t been such a baby and had said something then.”

“Me too,” I say, not even thinking about it.

“Gee, thanks.”

“Oh, hush. You know what I meant.”

He laughs that deep laugh of his again.

“So. You in? You want to do this? For real this time?” he asks with a gleam in his eye that promises happiness and undying love for a lifetime if I say yes.

My response?

I kiss him.

“I guess that’s a yes,” he teases, breaking our kiss.

“More of a ‘hell yes,’ but yes. I love you, Tucker. I never see that changing. You’ll always be that guy for me. You’re my ‘The End.’”

Tucker plants another kiss on my lips, understanding what I’m telling him.

I snuggle into his arms, and we sit quietly in the night. I woke up this morning hoping to see Tucker but unsure if he wanted to see me.

This moment, here with him? It’s way more than I could have ever asked for.

“I don’t think I want to erase our yesterdays,” Tucker says softly, breaking me from my thoughts.

“Hmm?”

“They’re there for a reason. Hudson’s always told me that everything happens for a reason, and I’ve never taken him seriously before. But now I get it.”

Sitting up, I ask him to explain.

“When I saw you last year at Perk, you seemed lonely, afraid almost. I could see that mask of yours even then. I walked away, letting you continue to wear it. Then Rae and Hudson happened, and with that came you and Tanner. I have to admit, it broke my heart at first to witness you two together. When I thought I had accepted it, we became friends, and that whole ‘accepted’ thing flew out the window because I quickly realized that I could never just be your friend. I would always want more. And we had that for a while.” Tucker smiles, I’m sure thinking of the short amount of time we had together before and how good it was. “But I think that if we had continued it without taking a break, we would have ended up running one another off. We needed to rid ourselves of our masks once and for all. And we did. So I’m grateful for the yesterdays. Grateful for them, but still excited as hell for our future together.”

Truth. I think deep down we knew we wouldn’t have lasted if we’d kept playing at being false versions of ourselves and skating around our history with Tanner. The break mended all that because we only focused on ourselves.

We finally took off our masks and became who we always wanted to be.

Us.