All Your Perfects(74)

I tilt my head, wondering why I never thought of his fortune from that point-of-view.

“Also . . . there’s this.” Graham flips his fortune over and holds it up, pointing at the number eight on the back.

I look down and also read the number on the back of mine. An eight.

Two number eights. The date we reconnected all those years ago.

“You lied to me,” I say, looking back up at him. “You said you were kidding about these having eights on the back.”

Graham takes the fortune out of my hand and carefully places both of them back in the box. “I didn’t want you to fall in love with me because of fate,” he says, closing the box. “I wanted you to fall in love with me simply because you couldn’t help yourself.”

I smile as I stare up at him with appreciation. I love that he’s sentimental. I love that he believes in fate more than he believes in coincidences. I love that he believes I’m his fate.

I stand on the tips of my toes and kiss him. He grabs the back of my head with both hands and returns my kiss with just as much appreciation.

After several moments of kissing and a couple of failed efforts at stopping, he mutters something about the pancakes burning and forces himself away from me as he steps to the stove. I bring my fingers to my lips and smile when I realize he just kissed me and I had absolutely no desire to pull away from him. In fact, I wanted the kiss to last even longer than it did. It’s a feeling I wasn’t sure I would be capable of again.

I debate pulling him back to me because I really want to kiss him again. But I also really want pancakes, so I let him resume cooking. I turn toward the wooden box and reach for the letter I wrote to him. Now that I feel like we’re on a path to recovery, it makes me want to read the words I wrote to him when we were first starting this journey together. I flip over the envelope to pull out the letter, but the envelope is still sealed. “Graham?” I turn back around. “You didn’t read yours?”

Graham glances over his shoulder and smiles at me. “I didn’t need to, Quinn. I’ll read it on our twenty-fifth anniversary.” He faces the stove and resumes cooking like he didn’t just say something that feels more healing than anything he’s ever said or done.

I look back down at the letter with a smile on my face. Even with the temptation of nude pictures, he was secure enough in his love for me that he didn’t need any reassurance from reading this letter.

I suddenly want to write him another letter to go along with this one. In fact, I might even start doing what he’s been doing all these years and add more letters to the box. I want to write him so many letters that when we finally reopen this box for the right reasons, he’ll have enough letters to read for a week.

“Where do you think we’ll be on our twenty-fifth anniversary?” I ask.

“Together,” he says, matter-of-fact.

“Do you think we’ll ever leave Connecticut?”

He faces me. “Do you want to?”

I shrug. “Maybe.”

“I think about it sometimes,” he admits. “I’ve already got a few personal clients lined up. If I secured a few more, it would allow for that, but it probably wouldn’t pay as much. But we could travel for a year or two. Maybe longer if we enjoy it enough.”

This conversation reminds me of the night I spoke to my mother on the steps outside of her home. I don’t think I give her enough credit, but she’s right. I can spend my time focusing on the perfect version of the life I’ll never have or I can spend my time enjoying the life I do have. And the life I have would provide me with so much opportunity if I would get out of my own head long enough to chase those opportunities.

“I used to want to be so many things before I became obsessed with the idea of being a mother.”

Graham smiles sweetly at me. “I remember. You wanted to write a book.”

It’s been so long since I’ve talked about it, I’m surprised he remembers. “I did. I still do.”

He’s smiling at me when he turns to flip the rest of the pancakes. “What else do you want to do besides write a book?”

I move to stand next to him near the stove. He wraps one arm around me while he cooks with his other hand. I rest my head against his shoulder. “I want to see the world,” I say quietly. “And I would really like to learn a new language.”

“Maybe we should move here to Italy and piggyback off Ava’s language tutor.”

I laugh at his comment, but Graham sets down the spatula and faces me with an excited gleam in his eyes. He leans against the counter. “Let’s do it. Let’s move here. We have nothing tying us down.”

I tilt my head and eye him. “Are you serious?”

“It would be fun to try something new. And it doesn’t even have to be Italy. We can move anywhere you want.”

My heart begins to beat faster with the anticipation of doing something that insane and spontaneous.

“I do really like it here,” I say. “A lot. And I miss Ava.”

Graham nods. “Yeah, I kind of miss Reid. But don’t repeat that.”

I push myself up onto the counter next to the stove. “Last week I went for a walk and saw a cottage a few streets over for rent. We could try it out temporarily.”

Graham looks at me like he’s in love with the idea. Or maybe he’s looking at me like he’s in love with me. “Let’s go look at it today.”