After All

“Is this really happening?” I ask him softly.

He places his hand on the ledge between us, palm up. “It’s real.” I put my hand in his and close my eyes as he holds it tight. “It’s real, baby. Everything. All of this. You, me. I know you’re still mad and you’re hurt and I get it, I really do. I know I fucked up. But I couldn’t just let you walk out of my life. I love you, Alyssa. More than I ever thought I could love anyone. More than I thought was possible. I love you and I am not letting you go without a fight.”

I swallow hard, the tears finally bubbling up. “I love you too,” I whisper, opening my eyes. “I’m so sorry I ignored you, I–”

“No, I get it,” he says, leaning forward, his beautiful eyes searching mine. “I get it. I don’t expect you to take me back, not after what happened. Not after everything. But I had to make sure. I had to have a shot. I had to try. Alyssa, our relationship was built on a lie, it was fucked up from the start. It’s never been straight forward or easy. It’s only been complicated. And while I know that it tested us, I just want to start again. From the beginning. I want to start over, you and me. One hundred per cent real. Only passion, no performance.” He breathes in deep. “I don’t know how to make it up to you, or what to say. But I figure I have a captive audience for the next ten hours and I’m going to use every single second to convince you to come back to me.”

I can’t help but smile. “Well, if you’ve had a whole play planned out, then I’m sorry to disappoint you.”

“I had you at hello?”

I laugh. “You had me at a first-class upgrade.”

God. I’m giddy. Giddy!

“Well then,” he says, giving my hand a squeeze. “I’m glad that won you over. You put someone in coach, crammed in like cattle in a feedlot, and then bring them up here and they’ll promise you the world.”

“Seriously though,” I tell him, feeling so much bubbling through me, I don’t know what to do with myself. Gah. “I’m…I’m so glad you came after me. I didn’t want to leave it like I did, I just didn’t know what to do. I was so hurt.”

“I know.”

“And now I know that it doesn’t matter. I believe you, Emmett, and more than that, I trust you. And I want to be with you, always, forever. Just us.” I pause. “And now we’re both flying across the world together. I didn’t really see that one coming.”

“I did,” he says simply.

“How?”

He shrugs. “You kept talking about acting. I kept talking about going back to London. I figured at some point we would go together. This whole thing with Autumn was a horrible wrench thrown in the plans but this…” he gestures to the plane, “us. It was all supposed to happen.”

“The grand design?”

“Something like that. More like, I know you and you know me and this makes sense.”

“Well I’m glad it makes sense to someone because I left a bunch of shocked people behind in Vancouver.”

“Nah, they get it. They all want what’s best for you. They know you’ll never be happy unless you head out and try to find what you’re looking for.”

“But what if I’ve just been looking for you?”

“Then you have me.” He raises my hand to his lips and kisses the back of it. “You have me, body, heart and soul. And for whatever else we’re looking for in life, the passion, we’ll look for it together.” Then he leans across the divider and kisses me, soft and sweet and achingly beautiful. “I love you, sunshine,” he says against my lips.

“I love you, too.”

We hold hands while the plane taxis down the runway.

And then we’re flying.





Epilogue





Alyssa





A year later



“Bloody hell, he’s good.”

I glance over at my friend Jodi who is leaning forward in her seat, her eyes glued to Emmett as he moves fluidly across the stage.

Emmett’s only had the role of Professor Henry Higgins in the musical My Fair Lady for a few weeks now and already most of London is flocking to see him every single night. The headlines here have been calling him the sexiest professor ever, and there’s no question why. Emmett’s true calling isn’t playing some dopey spineless teenager or the villain of a superhero (which, can we just say, has the lamest power ever). Emmett’s true self is on the stage: acting his heart out, singing, dancing. Being one hundred per cent him.

The man can move, that I’ve always known (especially in the bedroom) and manages to make dancing both elegant and masculine. And then there is his voice. Bold and deep, it’s like when I first saw Ewan McGregor in Moulin Rouge, how when he opened his mouth, I was floored at all the talent I didn’t know was inside him.

It was the same with Emmett. He blew me away. And even though over the last year of us living in London he’s been having prominent role after role, singing his way into my heart, it still leaves me in awe every time I watch him.

Tonight, I got my friend and I front row tickets to the always sold-out show. Normally I would watch from the wings, but since this was Jodi’s first time at this show, I thought this would be the better experience.

Jodi and I work on the same play together. It’s at a tiny theatre in east London that can only seat a couple hundred people tops, but we’re doing The Crucible and despite the seriousness of the play, it’s been an amazing experience. Jodi happens to have one of the main roles, I’m pretty much a secondary character, but even so I’m finally living my dream.

As is Emmett. We found our dream together.

After we landed in London it took us a while to get into the rhythm of things. Even though I had Emmett now to help support me, I still wasted no time in getting a job. I ended up working as bartender at the pub located below our apartment, which worked out perfectly as I used the days to go and start my acting career. It was a hard slog, still is, but I was really, truly, doing what I set out to do. I was finally going after my dreams.

The apartment we share is a modest two-bedroom in the Shoreditch area–Emmett sold his Vancouver house for several million dollars but we’re still renting in London for now. There are so many amazing neighborhoods that we don’t want to be tied down to one place just yet.