The Fall Up (The Fall Up, #1)(58)

Tears filled her eyes. “That’s not true. You do that for me all the time. I don’t feel so out of control when I’m with you.”

I couldn’t fault her there. She did that for me, too. She was just confused on what it was.

“No I don’t.”

“Yes, you do.”

“No. I really don’t.”

“Yes, you really do!” she snapped, starting to get angry.

I couldn’t help but laugh as she narrowed her eyes at me. I rubbed my fingers over the pinched skin between her brows. “You’re going to give yourself wrinkles if you keep doing that. I need you to stay hot so I can show you off to my friends when you finally let me tell them.”

She swatted my hand away. “You can’t tell me how you make me feel. You’re not in my head.”

“I can tell you whatever I want,” I said indignantly.

“No, you can’t.”

“Yes, I can.”

“No. You. Can’t.” She got even more pissed, and I, once again, started laughing.

“I love you.”

Levee sat straight up as if a bolt of lightning had just struck the bed.

Yep. That was my smooth move. I’d just blurted it out while we had been bickering, fully dressed, in a random hotel room in middle of Maine. That was going to be the story we told our kids about—the magical moment you only get once in a lifetime with someone. It was Sam Rivers’s romance at its finest—completely and utterly ridiculous, but also more honest than anything in the world.

“You what?” she half breathed, half accused.

“Designer shoes, I said, ‘I love you.’ I have for a while. Probably from the moment you used your body to shield the wind so I could light my cigarette. Maybe even before that. It was love at first stalk, Levee.”

“Sam…”

“So, yeah, I can tell you whatever I want. And I’m telling you all I do is offer you a distraction from the rest of your crazy life. It’s a really f*cking good distraction, and I’m praying that you love the hell out of that distraction and want to keep it forever. But, at the end of the day, you have to be the one who wants to live. All I can do is be at your side while you do it.” I shrugged simply.

Although, as I stared into her brown eyes, there was absolutely nothing simple about it.

I love her. Now, I had to sit and wait to see if she loved me too.

She held my gaze while a combination of emotions passed over her gorgeous face. Her cheeks pinked shyly. Her lips twitched with humor. Her eyes filled with love. But her mouth said, “You’re a dumbass.”

Well, okay, then.





SAM BARKED OUT a laugh as he confidently folded his arms behind his head but eyed me warily. “Excuse me?”

“I said, ‘You are a dumbass,’” I repeated, but a giant smile threatened to swallow my face.

He loved me. He was also a dumbass, hence why I felt the need to inform him of such information. But, really, I was too busy fighting to keep my feet on the ground while my heart was attempting to soar away. He loves me.

A matching grin formed on Sam’s mouth. “Oh really? How’s that?”

“First, I need you to retract your declaration of love.”

He shook his head and curled his lip in disgust. “No way.”

I turned toward him and crisscrossed my legs in front of me. “You have to! I can’t talk about my ex-boyfriends after you tell me you love me! It’s bad form.”

He tipped his head to the side. “Why in the hell would you feel the need to talk about your ex-boyfriends right now?”

“Because it explains why you’re a dumbass,” I announced before bending forward to touch my lips to his. Pulling away just an inch, I whispered, “It’s a really good story, too.”

Sucking in a deep breath, he grabbed the back of my head and kissed me again. Holding me against his lips, he exhaled on a content sigh. “I’m not retracting anything, but if you absolutely must, I give you full permission to talk about your exes.”

“Okay.” I attempted to sit up, but Sam wasn’t having it.

Instead, he grabbed my leg and pulled me to straddle his lap. Then he stripped my shirt over my head in one swift movement, which was quickly followed by his own. I stared at his mouth-watering, ink-covered chest, noticing for the first time that Anne’s name was woven between the random designs. I reached out to trace my fingers over the black ink, but he caught my wrist and lifted my hand to his mouth.

Kissing the back of my hand, he said, “Now, why am I a dumbass?”

“Oh, right. Thomas Reigns, Chris Spears, Davis Long, and Lee Shultz were all distractions.”

“Jesus, did you date anyone who wasn’t in the NFL?”

“Lee plays baseball.” I shrugged.

“Anyone else?”

“Johnny Depp. But he was so weird.”

“And old,” Sam scoffed, clearly not enjoying my parade of exes.

I giggled as he cussed under his breath. “Anyway, what I’m saying is I’ve had a lot of distractions in my life. So I can say without a single doubt that you, Sam Rivers, are not one of them.”

“Levee—” he started, but I silenced him with a kiss.

“From the moment I first met you, you made the world lighter. You didn’t even know you were doing it at first. But just knowing you would be on that bridge every night soothed the madness that was ricocheting around inside my head. You made me laugh, and like Ric Flair”—I paused while he chuckled—“you made me feel special. The relief I felt in your arms made the craziness manageable. You were never a distraction to me, Sam. You were always my reprieve.”