“You looked great out there.” Audrey had managed to corner Nick when he’d tried to go looking for Missy. “You’re quite the dancer.”

“Thank you.” He tried to look around Audrey’s shoulder, without appearing too rude, but he needed to find Missy. Holding her in his arms on the dance floor had felt so right, as if his body had been made to be with hers.

He needed to tell her how he felt. And he hoped like hell it wasn’t too late.

“Maybe we could share a dance this evening?” She batted her eyelashes and popped her hip out to the side.

It’s not that she wasn’t an attractive woman. She was.

But she wasn’t Missy.

Damn. It had always been Missy. It always would be.

“Maybe,” he said hesitantly. “But I really do have to...” He spotted her. She was seated at a table with her parents and a few other relatives. She was nodding at something someone was saying, but the smile he so loved to see on her beautiful face was nowhere in sight.

He needed to change that.

“Would you excuse me?” Without waiting for a response, he slipped away and made his way first toward the DJ booth. With the party just getting started, Nick knew it wouldn’t be an easy sell, but he was prepared to do whatever it took. As it turned out, it only took a twenty dollar bill and a quick explanation as to what he was trying to do in order to have his request heard.

Next, with his eyes locked on his target, Nick walked directly to the table where the family he’d always thought of as his own was sitting. What he was about to do could potentially destroy everything, but it was a risk he had to take.

“Excuse me.” He interrupted the conversation. “I’m sorry to interrupt.”

“Nick.” Alan stood and grabbed an empty chair, dragging it over. “Sit with us. Your speech was excellent.”

He ignored the extra chair and continued to stand.

“It really was,” Patrice chimed in. “What a lovely tribute to your relationship with Jake. You two really are like brothers. Always have been.”

Nick swallowed hard, but the lump in his throat wouldn’t budge.

“You should know, Nick,” Alan said. “We’ve always thought of you like another son.”

He again attempted to swallow before abandoning the idea. “Thank you,” he said instead. “You all are so very important to me as well.” His gaze landed on Missy. She blushed, and something that looked like pain crossed her face.

He knew he’d hurt her.

He hated it. He’d never do it again.

He just had to make her hear him.

Alan was saying something else, but Nick didn’t hear it, because all the noise in the room faded away as he looked at Missy and the first few notes of the song he’d requested started to play. “Missy? Would you dance with me?” He held out a hand and hoped she wouldn’t see the way it shook.

“We already danced.” It was an immediate response, but Nick could see the exact moment she realized what song was playing. “Hungry Eyes,” the second most iconic song from the movie Dirty Dancing. And Missy’s actual favorite. She shook her head and tried to look away, but his words stopped her.

“This one is for us, Missy.”

She turned back and looked straight into his eyes. Nick could see the confusion and indecision warring on her beautiful face. It may only have taken a few seconds, but it felt like an eternity before she finally nodded and took his hand. “Okay.”

He was vaguely aware of her family watching them as he led her to the dance floor and immediately spun her into his arms, but he didn’t care because he would risk everything if it meant having a chance to finally realize the love he’d felt for so long.

Missy allowed him to move her easily around the dance floor for a few beats before she said, “You requested this song?”

“Of course.”

Her gorgeous eyes filled with tears and it broke his heart. “Why?” she asked. “Why would you do that?”

“Because it’s your favorite.”

She looked up at him as a tear rolled down her cheek.

“I know Jake thought he was being funny with his song choice for our dance, but I know this was your favorite song from that movie. I remembered.”

“You did. Why?”

He pulled her close and turned them gently in time to the music. “Because I’ve remembered everything, Missy.” She looked down, but he tilted her chin up with two fingers. “Everything.”

“Nick, don’t do this.”

“I have to.”

She shook her head and tried to pull away, but Nick held her tighter. “I do,” he said. “Because I should have done it years ago.”

“Nick, I can’t do this again.”

The look on her face was almost too much for him. Was it too late? Had he really missed his chance with her? He refused to believe it.

“I’m just starting to—”

“No.” He stopped moving and with one hand still on her waist, he moved the other to her cheek. “Whatever it is you don’t want to do again, don’t worry. Please. I’m not going to hurt you, Missy.”

“But you are.” Her voice was somewhere between a laugh and a cry. “You said it yourself. You’re like family. We’re family. My brother thinks of you like a brother. My mom and dad think of you like a son, and—”

“And you?”

“What?”

“How do you think of me?”

“Nick.”

He knew how he thought of her. He’d known since he was sixteen. And it had only been concreted the moment she kissed him and he’d made the biggest mistake of his life. It wouldn’t happen again.

“Missy.” He lifted both hands and cupped her face right there in the middle of the dance floor because it didn’t matter who saw them. It no longer mattered whether anyone was paying attention to them or had any opinion of what they were doing. Because the only thing that mattered was the amazing woman in front of him and the realization that he would do anything to keep her from getting away from him again. “You want to know how I think of you?”

She nodded and Nick didn’t hesitate.

“I think of you first thing in the morning. Before my eyes even open and I haven’t yet had a chance to realize I’m awake. I think of you while I sip my coffee, wondering if you’re having some too. With just a splash of water in the first cup, just the way you like it. I think of you all through the day, sometimes so much so that I can’t get my work done because all I can think about is what you’re doing. I think about you right before I fall asleep, wishing you were with me, laying in my arms. I think of you in my dreams. Every single night. All night.” He used his thumb to wipe a stray tear that had slipped down her cheek. “Marissa Duncan, I can’t even put into words what I think of you because you’re all I think about. And you’re all I think about, because I’m desperately, madly in love with you.”

She didn’t say anything, and she probably would have tried to take a step back if Nick hadn’t been holding her firmly. She shook her head. Just a little. But Nick noticed.

“No,” he said. “Don’t do that. Don’t dismiss this. I meant every word I said.”

“You...you called me Marissa.”

---

He’d called her Marissa. That was the one thing out of everything he’d said that she could focus on.

It seemed the safest.

But he’d said other things too.

He’d said he loved her.

He’d said he loved her.

He loved her.

Her head spun and she couldn’t focus on anything. For a moment, she thought she might fall over, but Nick’s arms were there, holding her up. Nick. He was there.

And he loved her.

She looked up at him. “You called me Marissa,” she said again.

Nick laughed. “It seemed like the right time.” His hand cupped her cheek and she leaned into the touch. “Did you hear everything else I said?”

She nodded.

“I mean it. I love you.”

The words hit her in the heart and finally they registered.

“You love me.”

“I always have,” he said. “I was too young, stupid, and scared eight years ago to tell you then and I lived with the regret of that every day since. I thought I’d one day get over it and get over you, but I never did. Not really. And when I saw you in the restaurant the other night, I finally realized what my heart had always known.”

“But you...” Her instinct was to turn away and run from what was happening, but that was only because she wasn’t really sure what was happening. She’d dreamed of the moment that Nick would hold her in his arms and finally tell her he loved her. But she wasn’t quite ready to let herself believe it could be true. Not yet....

“I was an idiot,” he interrupted her. “I pushed you away and it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I’ve regretted it every day since.”

“Then...why?”

“I was scared.” Nick traced a finger down the side of her face as he looked her straight in the eyes. She couldn’t see anything but honesty and love shining back at her. “Jake, your family—they were everything. All I had. I mean...I had my family, but...”

“It wasn’t the same,” she finished for him.

“No,” he agreed. “And then when I started falling for you, I was scared. I didn’t want to ruin everything for something that was just a crush.”

“But it wasn’t just a crush.” On some level, Marissa was aware the song had ended and had turned to a more upbeat party song, but they didn’t move.

“No.” He shook his head with a little laugh. “It was definitely not just a crush, but that night when you told me how you felt, I panicked and I did the only thing I could think of.”

She dropped her gaze, but his next words made her look up again.

“It was the worst decision of my life.”

“It was?”

He nodded. “Marissa, I’ve never stopped loving you. And obviously I’m a slow learner because I almost blew it again all because I was afraid. But you know what?”

“What?” A smile tickled the edge of her lips, because the reality of what was happening was just starting to set in.

“You are everything and if you feel about me even a fraction of the way I think about you, then there is absolutely nothing that should be keeping us apart.”

Marissa nodded. Happiness flooded through every cell in her body. Nick loved her. And more than that, he stood there in front of her family and all of their friends and told her so. They weren’t a secret.

“Tell me you feel the same way.”

Her smile threatened to crack her face it was so wide, but Marissa didn’t care. “I do,” she said after a moment. “Nick, I’ve loved you for so long I can’t remember a time when I didn’t.”

She had so much more she wanted to say to him, but she didn’t have a chance because a moment later, his hand was behind her head, threading through her hair and pulling her close. His lips pressed to hers in a kiss that would go down as the single best kiss she’d ever had because this time as they came together, there were no questions. She wasn’t left wondering about where she stood. She knew everything she needed to know.

Nick Slater loved her.

And as they kissed in the middle of the dance floor with everyone’s eyes upon them, that was the only thing that mattered.