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Previous Chapters: Teaser/Prologue, Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9, Chapter 10, Chapter 11, Chapter 12

Unexpected – Chapter 13

It’s been omnipresent all night. The voice in his head. The one that appears and reappears so often in his life, often at the most inopportune times. But now it’s not alone. It’s joined by another voice and then another and another, each spilling words and phrases until it all becomes nothing but jumbled noise piercing his mind.

He knows what’s about to happen but he knows he is powerless to stop it. He closes his eyes, clenching them so tightly that the darkness becomes filled with specks of white light and then he takes deep breaths, three or four sharp inhales followed by slow and steady releases. It’s his attempt to control the inevitable, his attempt to silence some of the noise and chaos.

But instead, the volume only increases.

His mind feels as if it’s on fire, burning and searing with vengeful phrases and regretful thoughts. But then it feels like its racing, speeding along wildly before it slams into a wall of words only to jet off again. There are sounds of alarm, shouts of what he is doing is wrong, that leaving her is wrong. There are screams of affirmation, roaring Tom’s name alongside warnings of his heart breaking. They bump and twist, knot and squeeze.

They debilitate.

That’s the thing about anxiety. Or at least this anxiety. It’s all consuming. It’s a punch to his gut. A clamp to his heart. A weight to his chest. It makes him feel as if he can’t breathe, that he can’t think coherently, that he is paralyzed. It provides a physical manifestation of anguished feelings and emotions. It limits and prohibits. Hinders and destroys. It breaks.

And then there’s another exclamation shooting through.

That maybe right now, it’s deserved.

He felt it the moment the elevator door opened into the lobby of the Four Seasons, the bright light smacking him in the face just about the time his entire body became overcome with a sense of loss and dread. He felt it as he sat in his car, his hands on the steering wheel, going nowhere, his heart still inside, upstairs, lying in bed.

With her.

But those feelings would be joined instantaneously with others. Loss and dread stoked with clear confirmation that he was protecting his heart and that protection comes at all costs.

At some point in his mental battle, he had made it home and had absentmindedly rubbed his hand atop the head of his whimpering dog and his way into the shower. He smelled of her. He could still feel her fingers dragging along his skin, could still feel the warmth of her lips on his chest and shoulders. He clenched his eyes shut as he scrubbed and then rested his forehead against the marble wall of the shower when he succumbed.

There was no washing himself clean; there was no ridding himself of her. She was attached to every nerve ending, embedded in every pore. She was wrapped around his waist and buried in his head. And permanently etched in his heart.

And it was that thought amongst the thousands of others that broke him. That sent him spiraling over the edge amid tears and punches to the wall. And he allowed himself to wallow there for more minutes that he even bothered to recognize.

He loaded Dodger up after, knowing that even with complete and utter exhaustion of his body, mind and soul that no rest would ever come to him. Not with the voices screaming in his head and Taylor weighing so heavily on his heart. Not with being so wrought with anxiety, regret and every other emotion known to man.

The drive was a blur, a mindless mess of fog only salvaged by the instinctual nature of the body knowing what to do and where to go. Taking him miles away from her in search of any hint of solace in the only place where he’s ever found it.

His eyes are still clenched shut when he moves his hand to his temples and rubs. The room around him is silent but the noise in his head is still deafening. He takes another breath, trying to ward off the anxiety attack that looms all around him. Another. Then another.

It’s not until he feels Dodger’s fur tickle his free hand that he finally feels the racing in his heart start to slow. He opens his eyes and waits for the white specks to disappear and his vision to clear. Beside him, Dodger moans again and he runs his hand down his back.

“It’s ok buddy,” he reassures his dog and he notes the hoarseness in his voice. His words fall like a block to the floor, not even sounding appropriate to him, but he tries his best to force a smile to Dodger anyway.

The dog whines again, this time louder and more pained and for the first time since he arrived here, he remembers that even in the silence, he’s not alone in the room.

He glances at his mother when he hears her clear her throat. She’s standing against the counter, arms folded across her chest, a coffee cup in one hand and a concerned look upon her face.

She didn’t question anything when he arrived on her doorstep, simply unlocking the door and stepping back to allow Dodger and then Chris to stroll past. He’s done this before. When his anxious mind takes over his life and comfort is only found at the table he grew up at with the woman who loves him unconditionally carefully watching on. He’s well aware that she’s concerned, watching his outward representation of his inward struggle likely increasing that concern. He’s also well aware that she’s abundantly prepared to aid him as he deals with the anxiety that he’s faced over and over again in his life. But . . . . as aware of these as he is, there’s also a knowledge in the back of his mind of what his mother will say when she finds out why he is fighting the battle he is at this moment.

“Your coffee is gonna get cold,” Lisa says, nodding at the mug sitting untouched on the table in front of him.

He mutters a quick “yeah” along with a confirming nod but doesn’t reach for it.

“Ok,” she stammers, “and I see that you are now beardless.” Instinctually, he lifts his hand to his chin, rubbing there. “Must have been an eventful night,” she continues and he offers yet another simple “yeah.”

From the corner of his eye, he sees his mom shrug and then push herself away from the counter. She takes a couple steps before she plops down in a chair across from him. “So, are you going to talk to me?”

He shakes his head. “Not now.”

“Ok. Normally I would expect my son to explain to me what he was doing when he shows up at my door without any sort of warning looking like some sort of lost puppy but,” she hesitates briefly, tapping her finger on the side of her mug, “considering the events that took place at the game last night, I think maybe I at least know some of it.”

He scoffs, shaking his head. “You have no idea.”

“Well let’s see,” she begins, tapping that finger once more on the mug, “you left with Haley and Taylor left with Julian. If I were a betting woman . . . which I am . . . I’d say that’s not exactly what you wanted to happen. Actually, considering the wild look in your eyes when Julian whisked Taylor away, I’m pretty certain that’s not what you wanted to happen.”

He shakes his head again, lowering his eyes as he clears his throat and searches for his voice amongst those still shouting in his mind. “It’s not what I wanted to happen,” he stumbles over his words but pushes through, “What I wanted to happen did end up happening. And that’s the problem.”

“Care to elaborate,” his mom states, her accent thick as it always is when she’s dealing with him in this state.

The tug of war inside continues even with this simple question. It’s not such a simple decision in his foggy mind.

“Ma I don’t know . . .,” he starts to say before his voice hitches and his eyes move to the phone perched near the edge of the table.

Without even seeing who the incoming text message is from, his body reacts, his heart once again beating uncontrollably against his chest. His hands suddenly clammy and his throat raw.

Subconsciously, he knows who it is. The woman he left alone hours before. The woman whose body he ravaged and whose hands hold his heart even now. The woman who he picked up his phone to call a minimum of ten times since he left her only to give in to the chaos inside.

Even now, with his eyes glued to the screen of the phone, the battle ensues. He wants to grab it and see what she has said or to call her and tell her exactly how he feels about her but then . . . he wants to protect his heart, to harden his resolve in confirmation of his actions.

“Christopher,” his mother says softly and he reluctantly pulls his gaze up to her, “get out of your head.”

With eyes back on the phone, he picks it up. Tentative and deliberate, knowing he is not at all prepared to see whatever Taylor has said.

He scans her words, his chest heaving and falling with each one, each jabbing its own wound into his already pierced heart, each causing more noise to sound off in his mind.

He reads . . .

I realized I was in love with you when Tom came to see me in July. The moment I opened the door and saw his face, I wanted it to be you. That was the moment I chose you. I have waited and hoped you would choose me too but when I woke up alone this morning, with only your words at the bottom of a picture, I realized you weren’t going to. I need time to stop loving you. Knowing how I feel I can’t just be your friend right now and I hope that maybe one day we can be again. If that’s what you want and if I can ever feel like I can trust you again.

In an instant, his whole world plummets. He reads over her text again, and then again, his heart falling each time, breaking and shattering in the fall only to shatter into more pieces with each passing read.

She loves him, he says to himself, she loves him and he walked away from her. She loves him and he left her two simple meaningless words scribbled on a tiny picture in her hotel room. She loves him and she thinks he doesn’t love her.

The confusion subsides long enough for him to feel his pull to her, his yearning and desperate need to hear her . . . to somehow fix this mess that’s in his head and heart. If that’s even possible.

“Fuck,” he utters, pushing the chair out so fast that it slides back against the wall. He pays it no mind though, taking a few steps and punching his finger onto his phone.

It feels like a lifetime before he finally hears the shrill tone of a ring. Placing the phone to his ear, he paces, completely ignoring the concerned glare of his mother still seated at the table.

“C’mon Taylor, answer,” he says frantically, his legs moving him back and forth across the room at a similarly frantic pace.

When her voicemail beckons through the phone, he hits the end button and then quickly taps on her number again. “Please . . . . fuck,” he pleads with his fingers now moved to his forehead, rubbing against his temples as the noise in his head is quickly muted by a jabbing pain there.

Her voicemail beckons again just as he spouts another “fuck” and tosses the phone onto the table, watching it slide until it stops near his mother. It’s then that he acknowledges her presence again, stopping his movement and placing his gaze on her. Her worry is written all over her face.

“What is going on,” she asks, the first time she’s directly posed the question since his arrival.

He clenches his eyes shut again, moving his head from side to side slowly as he considers how to answer and with a hand strewn through his tousled hair, he finally opens his view back to her. He says the only words his hazed brain can muster at that second. “I fucked up so bad.”

He’s aware that his words are no surprise to her. After all, she’s been watching the battle he’s been waging with himself since he arrived. So he expects the next words out of her mouth. “Ok, go on,” she says firmly, with a nod and a cross of her arms on her chest.

Instantly, his mind shifts to pictures of the events of the previous night and last few hours and he feels the knot that’s been ever present in his stomach start to tighten like a noose. He grabs at the chair still against the wall and pulls it back to the table, wincing at the screeching noise it makes across the floor.

When he sits, he takes a labored breath and stares down at the table.

“I was with Taylor last night,” he begins, not raising his head, “I went to her hotel after dropping Haley off. I was so angry at her for leaving with Julian.”

“Angry or jealous,” Lisa asks abruptly and he shrugs without looking at her.

“Both. We got into an argument and then she kissed me and then . . . . . I have wanted this, wanted her, for so long. And I had her. Every single bit of her.”

From the corner of his eye, he sees his mom move her head. “And,” she prompts.

He clenches his eyes shut as the pain of what happened not so long ago stabs into him. He clenches harder, the pain he is feeling now evident on his face. He fights for his voice. “And then this morning,” he forces as the light sears back into his opened eyes, “I started telling myself that it was all a mistake. That she’s in love with Tom and that she was giving me just one night, nothing more. I was so scared she was going to wake up and say that. So I wrote her a note on a picture saying I’m sorry and I left.”

“Christopher,” Lisa sighs and Chris leans his head back, moving it from side to side.

“I know mom . . . fuck.” His roaring voice reverberates through the room, “I was so damn wrong. That text.” He points to the phone, his hand shaking in his own anger. “Taylor telling me she loves me, that she fucking chose me and that she’s not with Tom but that now she knows that I will never choose her. Because I walked away from her.”

“You walked away from her without telling her that you loved her.”

He throws his hands up in the air as he once more pushes the chair out and begins pacing the floor. He rubs exasperatedly down his face, his palms fiery hot on his skin. “Yes,” he all but screams. He moves his hands to his waist and his chin toward the ceiling. “I didn’t tell her because I didn’t know how. Because I was so damn scared of her still choosing Tom. But she didn’t choose him. But she also didn’t tell me before.”

“She did tell you.” Lisa’s voice is soft but her words surprise him. He turns to her. “She told you last night. You are so blind child.” With a tilt of his head, he narrows his gaze. “How did you not see how hurt she was to see you with another woman at the game? Did you not look at her at all? Did you not see her?” She leans forward, shaking her head from side to side. “Taylor left with Julian because she couldn’t stay with you. Because you were with Haley. He was her escape. Because it was as plain as the nose on my face that her heart was breaking and she would have used any excuse to get out of there.”

His eyes fall again, the noise slowly returning to his mind, paining him. “She left with Julian,” is all he can muster.

“Chris . . . . you need to remember that she didn’t come there with Julian Edelman. She didn’t come there to see Julian Edelman either. She came there to see you. I don’t know how you didn’t see that. Everyone else in that room did and they saw her eyes and her face when she realized Haley was there. And then Haley didn’t leave your side.” Lisa shakes her head. “Chris, Taylor told you last night how she felt. It was written all over her. And I know she left with Julian and I know that you thought she was still with Tom but had you opened your eyes for one second and actually looked at that woman, you would have known how wrong you were.”

“I didn’t see it,” he whispers.

“You didn’t allow yourself to see it. You were so caught up in what could go wrong that you couldn’t see what was so evident in front of you. Then you sleep with her and you leave her.” Lisa takes a deep breath, closing her eyes briefly as she shakes her head. “And a note Christopher. Really? You left a note saying you were sorry. You couldn’t have waited for her to wake up and tell her how you felt? How is she supposed to feel after that? How would you have felt? Because all of the fears that you’ve let eat away at your mind as something that might happen is exactly what happened to her. What you did to her.”

“I know,” he blasts through the abundant dissonance, throwing his arms out and continuing to wear his path in the floor.

Lisa watches him for a few moments and he knows that she is reading the emotions on his face and throughout his body. Then he sees her dip her chin. “Sit down.” He stops, looking at her. “Sit down Christopher.”

He does as she asks, pulling the chair back to the table and dragging his body into it. He puts his hand on his chin and his gaze back on the phone near his mother. Taylor’s text returns to his mind as he does.

“You’ve got to stop this. You’re letting the echoes in your head dictate your heart and you are going to lose that amazing woman because of it.” His gaze falls farther and he nods his head, listening to her words. “I understand how complicated this situation has been.”

“You can’t really understand,” he whispers, “I never intended to fall in love with her and then I did but there was so many other things going on.”

He doesn’t have to look to know that his mom is agreeing. “Maybe I don’t fully understand but I can imagine what it’s been like for you. I’ve seen how you are with her, how you have been with her. I’ve seen how you wince when Tom’s name is brought up and how you reach for her at times and then pull back. And I know that Jenny was there for a while too. But I can also imagine what this has been like for Taylor because I saw the same things in her that I saw in you. And I know there is bound to be a whole lot more that I didn’t even see.”

“There is . . .,” he confirms.

“Do you remember what I told you when you and Jenny broke up? That conversation we had where you were so deep in your own head because you couldn’t figure out what was holding you back from fully committing to Jenny? And I told you that there isn’t always an explanation.”

He nods, “Yes.”

“Well I was wrong. Because there was an explanation for what was holding you back. And Taylor is that explanation.”

He shakes his head again. “I didn’t even know Taylor then.”

“I know,” Lisa replies, “but she was the something different I said was waiting for you.”

A memory of his conversation with his mother that day resurfaces and he relives her saying the words she is referring to. In this very kitchen, her hand busily stirring a pot of sauce, she had told him that sometimes you have to accept that what happens is the way it’s supposed to be and that perhaps it happens because there is something different out there waiting for you.

“Do you remember what else I said,” Lisa asks and he squints his eyes, their conversation continuing on replay. “You said your heart was foolishly protecting itself from being broken and I said that maybe it was saving itself for the one that’s supposed to have it.”

“But now I’m back to that,” he stammers, lifting his gaze back to her, “back to saying my heart is protecting itself from being broken. I’m running from Taylor the same way I did from Jenny.”

“No you’re not,” she contends with a strong headshake. “You walked away from Jenny because you knew what you felt was wrong. You walked away from Taylor because you know what you feel is right and that scares you. But you don’t need to be scared. Because she’s the one that’s supposed to have your heart and the one that was waiting out there for you. She’s the reason why it felt wrong with Jenny. And trust me son, if you don’t let go of those echoes and right this wrong that you’ve done, you will never forgive yourself. The only thing standing in your way right now is you. There is no Jenny or Haley. No Tom or Julian. No fear that she doesn’t feel the same way about you that you do about her because she does and you now know that now. You both have left way too many words unsaid and made far too many missteps. But right now, it’s all on you.” His jaw clenches and he nods as he watches her eyes soften. “Right now you are the one who has to right the wrong. Don’t let her go on without knowing how you feel. Don’t let her only remember you leaving her alone. I know that you’ve said that you couldn’t understand how Tom could ever let her walk away . . . . . and then you walked away without even giving her a chance to stop you. Right your wrong.”

“And if I can’t,” he asks softly, the anxious thoughts teetering on the edge of his mind.

“Do you love her,” Lisa asks, her eyes steady on him.

He nods. “Yes.”

“Then you have no choice but to try. Forget the noise and the doubts in your head, Chris. Focus on your heart. Focus on Taylor and how you feel about her. She deserves to know that and you both deserve a shot at something beautiful. Scott and your sisters and I have seen that beauty between you two from the beginning. You can’t just let that slip away without trying to get it back.”

He nods, abundantly aware of just how right she is. Even within the chaos, he knows that and realizes just how beautiful what he and Taylor share is. At least now he can acknowledge it without thoughts of others complicating it. At least now he can, even if now is too late.

He pushes the chair back slowly this time, taking a couple steps around the table until he reaches his mom’s side. Leaning down, he places a quick peck on her cheek and then retrieves his phone from its position in front of her.

Lisa laughs slightly when he turns back around and starts heading toward the door. On cue, his dog that has been strangely missing through his entire conversation with his mother bounds back into the room and joins him at his side.

“And Christopher,” Lisa yells just as he reached the door and turns the knob. “Don’t come back here without her.”

He’s shaking his head when he glances back at her and smiles. “I won’t.”

Twenty minutes later he is over halfway back to Boston and busily sorting through thoughts in his head. The noise and negativity strengthens at times but with each emergence, he draws in a breath and pushes it away, propelling his mom’s statement of not letting the echoes dictate his heart forward and drowning out the chaos. Occasionally, Dodger leans his head across the small space between them and places it on Chris’s leg and he knows that his dedicated pal is sensing the internal struggle he is processing through.

It’s as he is sifting and sorting through thoughts, emotions and memories that he realizes exactly what has been right in front of him all along. Taylor attempting to tell him about Tom, to tell him the truth about what had happened and most likely, what she felt for him. But each of those attempts was met with a roadblock. A wall. An obstacle. An unfortunate miscommunication or slip of tongue. An assumption that something was what it absolutely was not.

He holds so tightly to the steering wheel with his right hand that his knuckles go white and he moves his left elbow to the edge of the window, raising his fist to his mouth and biting at it. She had called him when he was in Los Angeles. When he thought she was with Tom but now knows was just after she turned Tom away. She had called randomly but then suddenly halted her conversation when he had told her that he was at dinner with Jenny. The first roadblock.

Another memory parades through his mind as quickly as the road passes beneath him. Facetime in South Africa. She had pressed him about his breakup with Jenny, the remembrance of what he told her when she did stinging him with the knowledge that he has now. I didn’t think it mattered he had said. He didn’t think it mattered to her is what he meant but now he realizes how he implied that telling her wasn’t important and how she likely interpreted his thoughtless words as his reneging on the deal they made on her terrace in Rhode Island that they would explore what was going on between them if their relationships failed. The second wall.

He bites at his fist harder. Before he came back to the States, she had told him that she had something to talk to him about. Face to face, she had said. But then when she was ready to say what she wanted to say, her voice was stopped with Haley’s appearance. And with Haley clinging to his side in the Patriots suite, she had whispered that there was no use to say it anymore. That it would only bring heartache. Obstacle three.

Dodger rubs his head along Chris’s leg as memories of the night before barrel like a train back into his mind and he thinks about when she had stopped him and said that they needed to talk, remembering specifically for the first time what he had said just before she did so. He had told her that she was going to make him think she was in love with him. And she is. He fights the tears starting to burn into and blur his eyes when it dawns on him that that was exactly what she wanted to talk to him about. Not about how much of a mistake they were making and how she loved Tom. She wanted to tell him how she loves him. He had effectively silenced the words he had wanted so desperately to hear her say . . . . and he potentially silenced them forever when he went back on his own promise to her that he would talk to her today. Roadblock. Wall. Obstacle. Missed opportunity four.

The miles fly by and he begins to see the Boston skyline in the distance. His thoughts though remain focused on Taylor and the memories of moments that she told him so much without telling him a thing. But he had failed to hear her. The kisses and touches. The painting. The request of him to surprise Leo followed by the revelation that night that she was jealous of the woman who had flirted with him and that she had pictured him as her one.

She had told him that she thought he was perfect. Shared up close and far away sunrise kisses. She had worn his shirt and his necklace and loved and cared for his dog like he was her own. And then she had walked into an event with Haley by his side and told him with broken eyes and a broken voice that she obviously wasn’t a threat to his costar. He, however, had failed to notice any of the brokenness until now. Had failed to realize that it wasn’t Tom or Julian that she wanted . . . . it was him. Even after she showed him she wanted him with her body wrapped around his, he still failed to understand.

He failed her. Him. Them.

And now, he’s broken both of their hearts in his misguided attempt to spare his.

“I’ve really messed this up, Dodge,” he says, keeping his eyes on the highway.

With his head still on his leg, Dodger whines and Chris nods. “Now we just need to find her.”

It takes him ten more minutes to navigate the familiar streets and pull his car to a stop in the valet lane of the Four Seasons. He tosses his keys to the man nearing the vehicle as Dodger jumps out beside him. “I don’t know how long I’ll be but I’ll pay you generously if you keep it close and get it to me fast if I come back out within a few minutes.”

“And if you’re in longer than a few minutes,” the man yells loudly as Chris and Dodger near the entrance.

He turns back to him and grins. “If I’m in longer than a few minutes consider it a good thing, park it somewhere and I’ll still pay you generously.”

He feels the glares the instant he and Dodger walk in the door and he raises his hand to a concierge as she approaches him. “I know. No dogs.” Even with the acknowledgment, he continues on, Dodger prancing confidently at his side.

It’s only when he arrives at the penthouse elevator that he stops. The man standing just outside the doors is the same one who escorted him the night before and he almost feels thankful for this.

“Is she still here,” he asks, tilting his head upward. When the older man stalls, he speaks again. “Listen, you know I was here last night. I had a beard then but you know it was me. I am begging you to tell me if Taylor is still here.”

“I’m not supposed to,” the man stutters and Chris clenches his eyes shut for a few seconds before opening them again.

“Please.”

The man looks from Chris to Dodger and then back to Chris before slowly shaking his head. “No, she left a while ago. Looked pretty upset.”

“Fuck,” Chris winces and then turns his body, looking around the busy lobby, “and I doubt you heard anyone say where she was going?”

He knows the man likely doesn’t know and it’s confirmed when he shakes his head. “No.”

With a tip of his head to the side, he looks into the empty elevator. “Can I go up? We know she’s not there so I can’t do any harm can I?”

The man’s eyes widen and he places his hands palms up in front of him. “I can’t do that.”

“Why not,” Chris asks, forcing a grin, “I’ll only be like 5 minutes. You can go with me if you want. Then I’ll leave and you won’t ever see me again.” He changes his statement when he sees the man’s knowing half-smile. “In person again.”

The operator glances behind him quickly before providing a fast tilt back of his head. “Five minutes,” he says.

Chris wastes no time getting into the elevator, followed by Dodger and the man whose job he knows he is putting on the line.

He offers him a thank you and a few other words of appreciation on the ride up but he says nothing in return. And when the door opens to the penthouse and Chris spies a cleaning cart holding the main door open, he tosses a fifty dollar bill to the man. “Five minutes.”

He’s inside within seconds, his gaze frantic as it rakes and roams over ever surface of the room. He can hear the maid cleaning in the bathroom, his mind moving to the mess likely left there from Taylor shaving his beard the night before.

He shakes the memory, moving quickly about the large open room until his survey falls to one small object sitting on the counter. The same counter he left his single I’m sorry scribbled on her picture. The picture is now gone, this object taking its place.

His heart aches at its recognition.

Taking a few timid steps to the counter, he picks it up and brings it to eye level. The necklace that he left her in Watch Hill. The one she’s worn since then. The only thing that was left upon her body when he made his escape this morning. A painful realization sets in again. He had failed them.

He clutches the small necklace in his fist, clenching his eyes just as tightly and then slips it into his pocket, feeling as if it burns a hole there as he does.

“What are you doing in here,” a voice beckons, forcing his eyes back open and a turn to face the maid.

“Sorry I forgot something,” he says quickly, his voice faltering, before he pushes his legs forward, back toward the door.

He’s just about there when, from the corner of his eye, he sees another object lying on the floor. He ignores it at first but then something pulls his gaze back to it, something pleads with him to see what it is.

It takes just two long strides to reach what appears to be a card lying haphazardly on the carpet. Leaning over, he picks it up, revealing the familiar blank back of a post card. But when he flips it over, a tremble rips through his body.

Block Island it reads in bold letters across the top.

“Block Island,” he says softly as he remembers Taylor’s entry regarding the same place in her Q&A A Day journal, remembering the words she had written about wanting to return there.

Within him, he knows without a doubt that is where she is, where she is escaping to.

Folding the postcard, he holds it in his hand and bounds out the door, returning to the elevator that took him away from her hours ago . . . . this time, he hopes, taking him to her.

He glances down at his dog sitting obediently at his feet. Dodger looks out at the water, the expression on his face one that Chris has never seen. He looks focused, or as focused as a dog could possibly look. Like he’s on a mission. It’s appropriate, he thinks, his dog so focused on his mission to find Taylor. He knows that his trusted pet loves her just as much as he does.

“So do we have an actual plan Dodge,” Chris says, leaning forward onto his thighs and clamping his hands together.

Dodger turns his head slightly, a small whimper coming from him.

“Block Island isn’t that big but I’d say there are quite a few houses on it. The question is which one is she at?” Dodger whimpers once again and Chris raises his view to stare out at the island as it comes into clearer view. “I guess we will go by them all until we find the one, huh? I have a wrong to right.” Moving his eyes back to Dodger, he lowers his chin. “And an apology to make.” When the dog tilts his head and whines once more, Chris raises up and chuckles. “Yeah, I know. I have a lot more to say than that.”

They head straight to a rental company the moment the ferry docks, Chris telling the desk agent that he doesn’t care what kind of vehicle he gets as long as it gets him around the island. He smiles and whispers the word “hopefully” when she asks him if he’s visiting someone special.

The search begins right after. The pair driving and looking, occasionally stopping at a house or cabin and knocking on the door. He ignores the surprised looks and wide eyes of virtually every person they come across. For a brief second he considers that one of those people may run to their phone and tweet or snap that they had just seen Captain America on Block Island and perhaps that would somehow get back to Taylor but then he pushes that thought from his head. He knows that likely the reason she came here in the first place is to disconnect from the world and he knows that even if she somehow did find out he was looking for her, he would continue the search anyway.

This isn’t a mission he can afford to fail at. Not with his heart and his future on the line.

The sun is going down and dark clouds are starting to fill the sky when he pulls onto a small gravel driveway with a sign that reads Peace & Tranquility. He can’t see any buildings from the start of the drive but he figures one has to be somewhere on the road.

“Where in the world does this one go,” he says to Dodger as the small road starts to peak upward ever so slightly.

He gets his answer when it evens back out and an expanse of land, beach and ocean comes into his view. It’s stunningly beautiful with the waves crashing in the distance and two pristine structures sitting just near the beach but it’s also scarily ominous with blackened clouds moving quickly overhead, seemingly twirling in the sky above the water.

He drives on, noting one lone vehicle parked to the side of one of the cottages. A silver SUV with Rhode Island plates. A rental he checks off in his head, just like pretty much every other form of transportation on this island.

When he pulls to a stop near the house without the vehicle, he notices Dodger stiffen up, his eyes straight forward. “You worried about the storm bud,” he says, patting his head, “this can be our last one for the night and then we will find somewhere to stay and something for you to eat and we will start again early in the morning. That sound ok?”

The dog makes no noise, instead keeping his eyes pinned on the house ahead.

Chris turns his head, following Dodger’s gaze and a quick pang jets through his heart. In the window, staring back at him, is a familiar white cat. He closes his eyes and shakes his head, his mind telling him that it can’t be Olivia. Taylor hadn’t had either cat with her in Boston, not that he had seen anyway.

But then another thought. Oliva and Meredith had likely been in Watch Hill and there’s little doubt in his mind that an upset Taylor would seek solace in her prized pets. And that cat in the window right now is no doubt one of them.

“This is it Dodge,” he says softly, a knot tightening in his stomach, the same seemingly doing so in his heart, “time to face the music and get her back.”

With those words, he feels his entire body start to seize up. He has no plan. He hasn’t even considered just what all he needs to say to her. All he’s been concerned about is finding her and now that he has, he doesn’t have a fucking clue how to actually get her back.

“Just tell her everything,” he whispers to himself.

He unwinds his fingers from the steering wheel, just now noticing that he’s been clutching it so tightly, and opens the door. He waits for Dodger to jump out and then closes it shut.

Dodger runs immediately onto the porch and stops at the front door but he hesitates, his body still adjusting to the strange feelings shifting throughout it. Taking a deep breath after a few seconds, he stuffs his hands into his pockets and walks onto the porch, noticing Olivia’s stare the entire way.

He can feel the unsteadiness of his hands as he shifts them back out of his pockets and raises one to knock on the door, the sound of the soft pound sending an equivalent pound to his heart.

The seconds that pass feel like hours but he hears nothing from inside. Lifting his shaking hand once more, he pounds a little louder. Dragging seconds go by with the only noise coming from the wind picking up around him.

He steps back, finding Olivia in the window. “Where’s your momma at Liv,” he says with the cat tilting its head and then standing up and moving closer to the side of the window, staring now at Dodger at his feet.

His gaze is back on the door, trying to figure out his next move, when Dodger jumps up and sprints off. Chris’s eyes catch him just as he turns the corner around the house and disappears out of view.

“Dodge,” he yells as he forces his legs to move again and runs down the steps, following his dog’s path around the house until he stops just as the ground underneath him begins to lead into sand.

A rumble of thunder cracks in the sky and he can see a flash of lightning ignite miles back over the ocean and he begins to rake his eyes along the beach in search of Dodger. It takes him a few seconds to find him, several yards down the beach, his trusted companion now standing just feet away from a figure standing in the sand.

His body reacts immediately, recognizing Taylor’s figure even with her back turned and the distance between them. The emotions coursing through his veins are set on edge, his mind milling a mile a minute. He can feel his breathing intensify, his hands become clammy.

He keeps his eyes on Taylor and Dodger as he walks. His dog continuing to keep his distance, his rear sitting in the sand still a few feet back from her.

There’s another blistering burst of thunder and another distant lightning strike and the clouds are performing a magnificent and eerie dance in the sky just out from the woman he’s making his way to.

He stops near Dodger, absentmindedly placing his hand on the dogs head and petting as he eyes Taylor. She’s still standing straight, her arms clutching a thin white sweater around her body. He can see a peak of a black dress revealing itself underneath the sweater. His gaze roves to her bare feet and back up to her hair blowing in the wind of the incoming storm.

She’s magnificently simple and magnificently beautiful.

He takes two tentative steps forward and then clears his throat. “Taylor.”

Her shoulders stiffen immediately and he can tell that she’s drawn in a sharp breath. Her turn to him is slow and agonizing; the seconds making those he suffered through on the porch seem easy and making the mess he put his mind through this morning seem effortless.

She shakes her head when she sees him, her swollen eyes glazed over. “Go away,” she says through broken syllables.

His response is equally slow and deliberate, his head moving from side to side and he clenches his jaw, unclenching just before speaking. “No.”

He knows immediately that his response doesn’t sit well with her and she lowers her chin and her eyes, shaking her head vehemently. “Go away,” she says again, her voice strong and angry this time.

His response is the same. “No.”

She’s walking then. Her eyes falling to Dodger as she stomps past him in the sand and he turns on his heels to follow her quick pace. “Go away, Chris,” she yells just before tossing a quick glace back at him and then returning to her headstrong march ahead, tossing her arms into the air, “why are you here anyway? Is there a position we didn’t try last night?” She throws another glare toward him. “Coming for your blow job now? What is it? Because I’m now readily aware that you only want me in your bed . . . not anywhere else.”

Another crash of thunder and jolt of light encompasses them but they both march on.

“Taylor,” he cries as he grabs for her arm and she instantly jerks it free, “you know that’s not true.”

“Do I,” she screams.

He groans. “I don’t fucking know if you do but I’m here to tell you it’s not. So please stop and let me tell you.”

He’s frustrated at her frustration and he mentally scolds himself because this is not how he would ever want this to go and he knows this is absolutely not going to fix the mess that’s been made.

She picks up her pace as she rounds the house and plods onto the porch.

He lightens his approach then, lowering his voice. “Taylor please let me explain.” But his words smack into a wall, or in actuality, a door as Taylor tracks inside and slams the door shut behind her.

At his feet, Dodger whines but he just stares blindly at the door in front of him for a few moments and then leans his right arm against it, placing his head on that same arm. “Taylor, please. I know I fucked up . . . . . god, I know that. But I’m asking you to please talk to me. Please.”

He’s met with silence from the other side of the door and a thunderous explosion of noise from the sky. To his left, the wind starts to whip a swing hanging from the porch ceiling, causing a back and forth squeaking noise.

“Taylor,” he pleads again, already knowing he will receive no response. He waits briefly before his voice beckons again. “I’m not leaving, Taylor.” Stepping back, he takes another breath. “I’ll be waiting out here until you decide to talk to me.”

Again, he receives stillness from inside to contrast against the ominous agitation brewing in the sky outside. He glances to it as he moves to the swing, Dodger moving with him. Hues of black and gray hang overhead with a fog-like sheath of rain approaching quickly.

He sits as another blast of thunder echoes followed almost instantaneously by the speckling pound of rain smacking the ground and structure. The wind tickles his skin, forming goosebumps and Dodger moans.

Minutes go by with the storm moving in, the intensity of the rain and wind picking up, causing much of it to spray onto the porch and onto him and Dodger in the swing. He moves his position, scooting closer to the house and throwing his hand up to wave at a staring Olivia now back in the window.

When Dodger begins to grow wetter and his whines increase, Chris raises his voice. “I know I deserve this, Taylor. I get it. But Dodger doesn’t and he doesn’t know how to talk so will you just consider letting him in. He’s a bit spoiled and probably thinks he’s going to melt in this rain.”

A few more seconds pass and his head perks up when he hears the creek of the door. It’s open only slightly, just enough for Dodger to slip in but it doesn’t close after he does. Instead it remains in the same position for a few fleeting moments and then he watches as it opens fully and Taylor steps into the frame.

“I’m not talking to you,” she says, her eyes now even more swollen but also steady on him, “but I’m also not cruel. You can come in too.”

It’s a start, he thinks as he hastily gets up, hoping she doesn’t change her mind and slam the door back in his face. He’s pleasantly surprised when she doesn’t but she also doesn’t bring her gaze to him as he walks inside, keeping it down even as she closes the door behind him and then walks past him.

He watches her move without moving himself, his eyes focused on her as she goes to Dodger, whispering something to him as she pats his head and then Dodger going with her when she moves along.

They go into the kitchen and he can see her dig something out of the refrigerator. She pops the top off of a container and pours what appear to be strips of chicken onto a plate before laying it on the floor in front of his pooch.

She glances at him then, a flicker of a second, and turns to toss the container in the sink before she walks back into the living room where he is. She plants her feet firmly on the floor and her hand on her hip when she stops. “How did you find me?”

Lifting one shoulder, he keeps his view pinned to her. “I went back to the hotel looking for you and found a postcard for Block Island on the floor in the room.” He can tell by the look on her face that she’s confused. He shrugs again. “And then I remembered seeing an entry in your Q&A journal about coming here before.”

She shakes her head before pulling it down. “I should probably ask you why you were reading my journal or why you went back to the hotel but I’m not.” She turns her view to the window just as thunder shakes the house. “I suppose you didn’t look at the weather forecast before you came here. It’s supposed to storm all night. Fortunately for you, I love your dog so I won’t kick you two out. But there’s a ferry that leaves the island in the morning so you should make sure you’re on it.”

He completely ignores the last part of her statement, choosing instead to focus on the first.

“Do you remember the first time we were in a storm together,” he asks, a small grin on his lips.

Taylor shakes her head as she lowers it again. “Chris, stop.”

“Mamma Maria’s, cannoli and we kissed in the elevator.”

He knows she remembers but he reminds her anyway. He can tell by the expression on her face that she’s remembering their stormy night as well. But just as quickly, her expression grows stony and she steadies her eyes on him.

“There’s blankets and pillows in the hall.” She shrugs. “And maybe some food in the fridge. But I’m going to bed. It’s been a pretty difficult day and I just want it to be over with.”

Her last words are meant to hurt him and they do, piercing into his heart like a thousand tiny pin pricks. And for the briefest second, with her eyes still on him, she seems to regret her words. Like she can tell that she’s inflicted a bit of pain onto him, but then she stiffens up, turns and walks into a room just off from where he stands, leaving the door open just enough for Meredith and Olivia to slip in and out of.

Lying on the couch twenty minutes later, he crosses his ankles on the arm and plants his hand underneath his head. He stares up at the ceiling, watching the ceiling fan there shake as thunder rattles the house and listening as the rain sings a song as it hits onto the roof.

Dodger, being the traitor he still is, slipped into Taylor’s room the moment he finished eating and the cats soon followed as well. He’s alone in the room and pretty much alone in the house, knowing that his presence isn’t welcome.

When the wind and rain start to lull, his mind starts to roam. Dancing over memories of the past few months, his heart reacting to each and every one. Sweet kisses with a terrified Taylor atop a ferris wheel, s’mores and water fights, facetime popcorn with his niece.

Each memory beautifully etched for posterity in his mind.

Rolling his head to the side, he looks toward the partially opened door.

“Taylor, I don’t know if you are awake or even if you can hear me. I know you said that you didn’t want to talk to me and honestly, I don’t blame you.” He moves his eyes back to the ceiling. “But even if you won’t talk, I hope you will at least listen.”

He takes a deep breath, noting the way the noise of the rain disappears into the background. He’s unsure if it’s really diminishing or if it’s just that he’s no longer hearing it as loudly amongst the words he needs to say plaguing his mind.

“I’m an idiot, Taylor.” He shakes his head, still atop his arm. “I’m a scared and foolish idiot who hurt the one person that I never wanted to hurt. I was consumed with thoughts of you choosing Tom, of you deciding that what we shared last night was wrong, that I never even considered that maybe you were choosing me. Maybe you already had.”

Moving his arm out from under his head, he rubs both of his hands down his weary face and then reaches to grasp the thin blanket resting at his waist.

“I opened my eyes, Taylor. I know now what you’ve been trying to tell me. I know that you called me in LA to let me know that you didn’t take Tom back and I know that you tried more times than that to tell me too and every single time, my words or actions stopped you.”

Twisting his head to the side, he looks at the door again. He can hear no movement or noise at all coming from within and part of him tells himself to just stop talking, that she probably isn’t listening anyway. But part of him wills him on.

“I swear to you had I known any of that . . . . had I had any idea that you felt anything at all for me, I would have never left you this morning. I would have stayed there and kissed you awake and held you for hours . . . like I wanted to do. But instead I let my head get the best of me and I told myself you were going to break my heart instead of telling you what I should have been saying all along.” He sucks in a long breath, his mind racing, and then spills that breath along with his words. “And at the risk of sounding very much like No Strings Attached and knowing that’s probably not a good movie to reference right now . . . . . . I love you, Taylor. And maybe it’s too late or maybe you no longer care and hell, maybe you’re not even hearing this right now but I’m saying it anyway. I love you. I’m in love with you. And I have been for a while now.”

He rubs his hand down his tired face once more and drills his gaze back into the ceiling. “Taylor, there is nothing about you that I’m not in love with. And I don’t want to be with Haley or with Jenny or anyone else but you. And I don’t want you to be with Tom or Julian because, quite honestly, the thought of either one of them touching you makes me fucking crazy. And has for a helluva long time. Now it’s my turn. My turn to touch you. My turn to love you. And I promise you that I will and I do.” Another breath is taken in and then slowly let out. “So please forgive me,” he says, his voice softer, pleading. “Please know how unbelievably sorry I am and how I’d give anything to go back and to not walk out that door. I love you and I’m not just saying that because you said it, I’m saying it because it’s 100% true and 100% what I should have said to you long ago.”

Outside, the rain quiets completely, the storm now drawing near its end. Chris turns his head to look toward the silent room, keeping his gaze there for a few moments before he returns it to the ceiling. He moves his hands to his chest, clasping them together. “So I guess you’re probably asleep,” he says, “but I’ll say it again just in case you’re not. I’m sorry . . . and I love you. And I will do absolutely anything to prove that to you.”

Not surprisingly, his words warrant no response, not even the slightest of peeps being made. And in the utter solitude, he allows himself to acknowledge his exhaustion. Physically. Mentally. But most of all, emotionally. The rollercoaster of thoughts and emotions, the battle with noise and chaos and the words he just spilled out taking a toll on him in a way nothing has before.

He closes his eyes, promising himself to continue his pursuit in the morning. Rested and ready and, hopefully, without the extreme noise of the silence that encompasses him now.

He’s not sure how long it took him to fall asleep, just that he spent what felt like an eternity staring at the dark ceiling in the utter quiet. He’s not even quite sure if he’s really awake but when the hint of bacon that he had thought he smelled sifts strongly into his senses, he lifts one eyelid and looks around.

He sees nothing so he opens his other eyelid and pushes his back up from the couch. His body aches and creaks and he reaches his arms out in front of him to try to stretch out some of the soreness.

He breathes in another whiff of bacon as he throws his legs over the side and forces himself into a standing position and stretches more.

When his body finally loosens up and his morning fog starts to subside, he begins to follow the scent, moving not too far until he reaches the doorway to the kitchen. He stops there, leaning against the frame as he takes in the scene inside.

Taylor’s back is to him as she stands at a small, old stove. There are two pans in front of her. A cast iron one with strips of bacon sizzling inside and a larger silver one with pancakes just starting to bubble on the open side. Looking up from their positions at her feet are Dodger, Meredith and Olivia.

It’s a picture that tugs at both his heart and his lips and brings a specific memory rushing back to his thoughts.

“This reminds me of when I realized I was in love with you.” His words stop her movement but she doesn’t turn to face him. “When we were at your house in Rhode Island and I found you in your kitchen cooking breakfast with Stell, Ethan and Miles. I stood in the doorway and watched you with them. How carefree you were, how comfortable they were, all the laughter and smiles and that moment, that picture, felt so right. It felt so right because it’s a picture that I’ve had in my head for so long of my future. Watching the woman I love dance around the kitchen making breakfast with our kids. From then on, you have been the woman in that picture, the woman in my future. I admitted to myself that day that I was in love with you.” He shows a painful smile, knowing it’s only to himself. “Unfortunately, I didn’t admit that to you that day.”

Pushing himself forward, he steps into the room, watching Taylor’s back as he does. “Why didn’t you wake me up to go catch the ferry?”

She shrugs. “I don’t know.” Her voice is scratchy and unsteady and he wonders if she’s been crying.

He hesitates briefly, watching her more, her back still to him. He can see the tension there. “Did you hear me last night?”

A couple seconds pass before she answers with two small dips of her head, the action sending a strange mixture of happiness and fear through his heart. She had listened to him, had heard his naked words, finally revealing his full self to her. But the fear of the unknown, of how they felt to her, seizing his body and striking a chord of worry.

Moving to the counter nearest her, he places his left hip against it, leaning and crossing his arms across his chest. He starts to speak, to ask her how she felt, but when he sees her open her mouth and then bite at her bottom lip, he doesn’t.

He recognizes what she’s doing, fighting a battle in her head, and so he waits, simply watching her until he hears her clear her throat and then reach above the pans on the stove to turn the burners off.

She turns to him then, placing those blue eyes that first caught his attention on the plane to Paris back on him. He realizes this is the first time she’s truly looked at him since he arrived here.

“I have never in my life felt with anyone the connection I instantly felt with you. Even on that airplane to Paris . . . everything just felt easy and effortless. But then Paris was over and you were gone and I just chalked it up to you being the kind of guy everyone gravitates to.” Glancing to her right, she bites again at her bottom lip and lowers her eyes without lowering her head. He can tell she’s thinking of her next words and he lets her do so. “Then we met again and we connected again and, just like before, it felt so different to me. It’s difficult to even explain but it felt like we complimented each other, like we were two pieces that fit together so perfectly. But we were both attached to other people so I kept telling myself that we were only supposed to fit together as friends. I had many guy friends and you were just going to be another one.” She looks down at the floor then, a delicate smile forming as she notices Dodger standing directly beside of her and she pats at his head.

Her voice is barely audible when she lifts her head back up and speaks again. “But you weren’t just another one and somewhere along the line, I realized that. So when Tom came back wanting another chance, I knew I couldn’t do it. And I didn’t. I decided to choose you.”

Removing her gaze again, he watches the heavy rise and fall of her chest and the look of discomfort that paints upon her expression. It’s a few agonizing minutes before she seems to find her voice again. “I kept thinking you would choose me. Even before the game and before you came to my hotel, I thought that you would. I was hoping that you would. And then at the hotel, you said you’d choose me over Haley.” She smiles softly but then it falls off. “I was so happy, so sure this was it. This is what I had been waiting for and hoping for and trying to talk to you about. And we had this amazing, perfect night. I thought we had connected on this intense level that was so different than any man I’ve been with before. But then I woke up alone.” She tilts her head to the side, her pain evident in her glassy eyes. It stabs at his heart. “And I thought . . . Taylor you’re so stupid. He didn’t show up because he was choosing you, he showed up because he didn’t want Julian choosing you. That he wants to sleep with you but not love you.”

“That’s not what I wanted,” he says slowly, firmly.

“But it’s what I thought. It’s what I could only think when my heart felt like it had been ripped apart and thrown away.” She takes a sharp breath before she turns back to look at him and he sees the delicate emotions cascading through her vibrant eyes. “You had promised me you would stay and talk to me and I was finally going to be able to tell you what I feel for you and that I had chosen you instead of Tom but you didn’t give me the chance. And part of me gets it . . . . part of me can look at it from your perspective and see that I maybe hadn’t tried hard enough to tell you and that you thought I was still in love with Tom. And that’s the part of me that’s saying that I should forgive you and that I should just love you like I already do.”

“Taylor,” he says and she raises her finger up, clamping her eyes shut.

“Let me finish. Please.” She opens her view to him, a tear slipping down her cheek and falling onto her shirt as she does. “The other part of me is so shattered. Is so scared. Because you still hold so much of my heart and now I’m terrified of you crushing it.”

With a headshake, he pleads. “I won’t crush it. Believe me.” His gaze bores into her, begging. “Do you remember what you said to me in Paris?”

“I said a lot to you in Paris,” she responds quickly, lowering her head.

“You said that love isn’t easy but if it’s right, it will happen. And there wasn’t anything easy about this but we still fell in love, it still happened. Because it’s right.” When he sees her shake her head, her mouth falling open, he continues. “Taylor, love isn’t delivered in some perfect gift wrapping. It’s fucking messy. It hurts. But when it’s right, it’s right. And we are right. Why did you run from Tom? Why? Why did I push Jenny away? Because what we had with them wasn’t right. As right as we thought it all was, it wasn’t. We are right. We were meant to cross paths on that plane and to spend the night roaming the streets of Paris. And we were meant to meet again in Boston. We were meant to feel what we both feel.” He leans his chest down, pulling her eyes to his. “The love we both feel.”

Standing back up fully, he runs a frustrated hand through his hair and then stifles his gaze back on hers. “I am the other river you were meant to go to. And you are the something different that was out there waiting for me. We sat together in Paris and talked about childhood hopes and wishes. Growing old with someone, having big family birthday parties and picnics, going on road trips and having houses with white picket fences and swings hanging from trees. Our hopes and wishes were so similar because we are supposed to share them together.”

He takes a step forward, expecting her to immediately take a step back, but she doesn’t.

“If you want me to beg you, I will. I will get on my knees and fucking beg you, Taylor. Because I am so sorry for being so blind and for leaving you. Because I love you. I. Love. You,” he emphasizes. “I choose you. Only you. You have to believe me.”

Her eyes bore into his, searching and reading, her chest rising and falling rapidly as she does. “Believe me,” he whispers again. When she doesn’t respond, he rests his head against his back, running his hand through his hair. He considers his words, a million I’m sorry’s and please forgive me’s swimming about, and then pulls his head back into position, his eyes back on her. “I know I failed you, Taylor. I failed us. I know that I was weak and let my head overpower my heart. My head is sometimes messy but my heart . . .” He reaches down, gingerly slipping his fingers into hers and brings her hand up to place on his heart. “My heart is not. And it’s yours. It’s been yours.”

He watches as her expression shifts, edging on confliction. “What if your head gets messy again,” she asks, her voice teetering precariously.

Taking a deep breath, he shakes his head and lays his gaze firmly onto hers. “When it comes to you, it won’t. My head is clear now. Clear about how I feel about you, how I want you. And you want me too. Before, I thought I was giving you what you wanted but I know now that I was wrong. I know that I should have fought for you the moment I realized I was in love with you. I was wrong not to. But I’m here . . . . and I’m fighting. And I just need you to fight too. Hit me if you want to hit me. Yell at me. Tell me what a fucking idiot I was to leave you. Get it all out so I can show you how much I love you . . . and that I’ll never leave again. I’ll fight for you. From now on. Always.”

“You broke my heart,” she whispers, her simple words not simple at all. Not to his heart.

“I won’t ever again.”

“You left me,” she adds, taking a deep breath before she does.

He shakes his head, pressing his palm on top of the hand he’s still holding over his heart. “Never again.”

Dipping her head once, she stares at him, exploring his eyes, his face. He knows she is still reading him. Seeing if she can recognize the truth written in him. He pleads with her through his eyes, begging as he’s done before.

Taylor’s mouth falls open slighting and he can tell by her breathing that she’s about to say something but her words are halted by the sound of a loud rasp at the door. Taylor jumps slightly, pulling her gaze away and toward the noise in question.

Rolling his head around, he groans. “I’m really starting to hate knocking.”

His words bring a timid smile and he can feel a slight perk in his heart. “I have to get that,” she says softly as she turns and starts walking back toward the living room. Dodger falls in step quickly behind her and he takes a few steps himself until he reaches the couch and watches her open the front door.

Brandon’s eyes find his the moment the door swings open, his face hardening on the spot. “What are you doing here,” the stony bodyguard asks with no hint of amusement.

Chris looks from Brandon to Taylor, keeping his eyes on her. “Begging. Pleading. Groveling. Anything she wants.”

From the corner of his eye, he sees Brandon’s face soften the slightest of bits and then he turns to look toward Taylor. “Do you want me to make him leave?”

Slowly, painfully slowly once more, Taylor shifts her body to look fully at Chris across the room. Her eyes are still glassy, still tinged with unshed tears. The lone streak from the tear that fell moments before still etched in a red line down her cheek. She’s broken. He knows. And he’s the one who broke her. But he’s also the one that is here to do nothing but fix that break that he caused.

He pleads with her . . . with his eyes and his expression again . . . not to have Brandon kick him out. Silently continuing his plea for his chance to right his heartbreaking wrong.

She takes a deep breath, piercing her lips to let it fall back out and then shakes her head. “No. Its ok, Brandon. But thank you for checking in.”

Brandon watches Chris for a few seconds, finally dipping his chin and stepping back before advising Taylor to call him if she needs anything.

“Or if you decide to throw me out,” Chris adds once he is gone.

She nods. “Or if I decide to throw you out.”

He shakes his head. “You aren’t going to do that.”

“Why aren’t I,” she quips, titling her head.

Taking a step, he holds his hands out at waist level. “Because you know that what I’ve been saying is right. And because you know in your heart that I am incredibly sorry for hurting you and that I will do everything in my power to never hurt you again. And . . .”

He takes another step forward, stopping just in front of her.

“And . . .,” she prompts, eyes on his.

Shuffling forward, he tentatively moves his hand up, placing it on her waist and sliding it until he reaches the small of her back. “And because you love me too,” he whispers and pushes his hand onto her skin, her body moving closer to his. “Give me a chance, Taylor. Give me a chance to prove everything I’ve said to you. I won’t let you down. I promise.”

When he rests his forehead to hers, she finally allows the faintest of smiles to pierce her lips. “You were right earlier . . . . you are an idiot,” she says, moving her body even closer to his, “and I’m still angry and hurt at what you did yesterday morning. And my heart is still a little tentative and there is a pestering voice warning me not to believe you.” She lifts her head but doesn’t remove it from his, this position allowing her to look directly into his eyes. “But maybe I’m an idiot too because I do believe you . . . and I do love you. Even when I shouldn’t, I do.”

Her words tenderly anchor directly to his heart, lifting away the weight that has been heavy there. The confusion and oppression that has been so prevalent within his body and mind now vanquished and forgotten.

“You’ll never have another reason to question whether you should love me or not,” he whispers, his relief evident in his voice, “never.”

He finds her cheek then, cupping it as his lips reach for hers. She accepts them readily, brushing gentle kisses upon him before he deepens it.

“This is how the morning should have started yesterday,” she laughs when she breaks to catch her breath.

He nods, smiling. “It’s how it will start from now on.”

He joins her soon after to finish cooking breakfast, Chris taking on the job of frying bacon while Taylor flipped pancakes. Occasionally, he’d tap his hip to hers, lean down to kiss her cheek or swing her around to plant his lips on hers, finally having the opportunity to kiss her anytime and taking full advantage of all of those opportunities.

He holds her hand when they walk along the beach, the sun now shining warmly above them and causing the waves to glitter as they smash onto the shore. Dodger goes with them and she tells him about her taking his dog with her on walks along the beach in Watch Hill, going on to tell him about more of their adventures while he was in South Africa.

He asks her at some point about when she was in Nashville and left their facetime chat when someone came in. He had assumed back then that it was Tom and told her this, prompting her to throw her head back cackling as she revealed it was just Brandon coming in with an armload of groceries. She had got off the call to help him. He shakes his head, saying he should have known, Brandon seeming to have an uncanny ability to interrupt them at the most inopportune times.

That evening, after a call to his mom, he finds her sitting on the porch swing. Her hair is pulled into a messy ponytail, one leg resting under the other, the Captain America shirt he flung at her in Rhode Island the only thing covering her body.

Meredith and Olivia lounge on the swing to her left with Dodger sleeping peacefully at her foot. In her lap is the journal he skimmed through in Los Angeles, the same one that he saw on the dresser in Boston. She holds a pen up, biting on the top as she stares down at the open page of the journal.

He steps onto the porch, watching as she lifts her head, a smile emerging when she sees him.

“Penny for your thoughts,” he says as he moves to her, sitting on the side opposite her cats.

Her eyes moves back to the journal on her lap. “I thought about a lot of stuff as I was trying to go to sleep last night. What all you had said, what you were feeling and what I was feeling. And I also thought about you saying that you read my Q&A journal and I realized that when you did, you probably thought everything I had wrote in it was about Tom.”

He nods, clearing his throat. “I did consider that since I know he gave it to you.”

“He did,” she agrees, “and there are some things in here about him. But the majority of it is about you.” Titling her head, she smiles at him. “You see, after he gave it to me, I started carrying it with me so that I would remember to answer the questions every day. Sometimes though, I found myself writing quotes and feelings or potential lyrics or even random words as they came to me. So it kinda became more to me than just a question a day journal. And I noticed that after I met you, literally after first meeting you in Paris, pretty much everything I wrote or answered was related to you.”

His memory perks up; the entry he had read that confused him the most coming to mind. His own line from Before You Go scribbled in her handwriting on the date he had left Watch Hill.

If you’re committed to someone, you don’t allow yourself to find perfection in anyone else.

“So when you wrote the line from my movie in there.” He points to the book still in her lap. “You wrote it about me?”

She nods, her smile growing. “Yes. I wrote it about you. Because I had been telling myself over and over again that I was committed to Tom, that he was the one that I wanted, but I constantly found myself finding perfection in you. After you left Watch Hill that day, I watched Before You Go and you said that line in it and it felt this awakening in my heart. I was in love with you though it took Tom showing up at my door for me to finally admit that to myself.” She laughs, her cheeks rounding up. “It’s kinda funny now to think that your character in a movie is the one who said a line that started my realization.”

He laughs with her for a few fleeting moments before he sees her flipping the pages forward in the book, stopping on one specific page. On it, he can see where she has marked through all of the dates for years to come, leaving only the one from 2017. Around it, in small handwriting, are lines and lines of words.

She stares down at the page for a moment and then raises her head back up to meet his eyes. “I fell asleep on the plane after I left Paris. And I had a dream but when I woke up, I couldn’t really remember any of it. I could only remember this strange feeling in my heart and these words and lines that kept replaying in my head. So I grabbed this book and I wrote them down, not having any clue at that time why I was even doing it. I had forgotten about it until this morning. It had taken me forever to fall asleep after listening to you last night. But when I did, I had a dream. A familiar dream. And I woke up this morning realizing that the dream I had was the same one I had on the plane home from Paris. But this time, I remembered it.” Her brilliant blues sparkle when her smile lights up. “It was about you. And apparently, even then, even when I spent an amazing night with you in Paris, telling you over and over how Tom was my one, I knew he wasn’t.”

She lifts the book from her lap, handing it over to him and his gaze falls upon the words she had written just after their night in Paris.

You grow up watching fairytales. Whimsical stories that inevitably ingrain an image in our mind of “the one.” That perfect love. That perfect partner. The one who sets your heart afire, who makes you whole. It’s always there, always peeking out of the back of your mind, even when you think it’s not. Even when you tell yourself that fairytales aren’t real. That childhood expectation is always there. Always. Then, also inevitably and sometimes subconsciously, you set out trying to find that one. You kiss a few frogs along the way. You kiss a few you erroneously (and sometimes stupidly) think are the one. And then, likely when you least expect it, they waltz into your life. The “one” has arrived. And you’re happy and sad (c’mon, you know there are always obstacles before the happy ending) but you know in your heart that they are the one. What happens though when life gives you another gift. A curve ball. An event that takes everything you know about fairytales and how love is “supposed” to go and flips it upside down. An obstacle that is put into your path that maybe isn’t really an obstacle. What happens, when life gives you another “one.”

He can feel the tears stinging his eyes as he finishes reading.

“You were my other gift. My curve ball. The person who flipped my world upside down. It just took me a little while to realize you weren’t another one . . . . you are my only one.”

His lips find hers again. And again. Both lost in the magic that has seemingly always existed between them, even when they were both silently fighting to ignore it.

And when he remembers the object that has been resting in his pocket since the day before, he breaks from Taylor’s lips and reaches for it.

He pulls it up, twining the necklace she had discarded in her hotel room on the tips of his fingers before clutching it back in his hand and moving it to her.

“I think this is yours,” he says as he reaches behind her neck and clasps it there.

She stares down at the small trinket that he had bought for her at the carnival the night he kissed her atop the ferris wheel. The one with the tiny charm of the Eiffel Tower dangling from it. The one so symbolic of the first steps in their journey to love.

“You know, Audrey Hepburn did say that Paris is always a good idea.” She lifts her head, vibrant eyes upon him. “But our time in Paris . . . . I’d say that was a great idea.”

Leaning forward, he kisses her and then reaches for the Eiffel Tower charm on her chest, staring at it for a moment.

“Paris changed it all,” he smiles and watches as she does the same.

Taylor lays her head onto his shoulder then and suddenly, his mother’s voice flows through his mind, weaving and singing a familiar line. Sometimes life doesn’t give you what you want, it gives you what you need. He nods his head slightly, knowingly. Just when he thought he knew what he wanted, life gave him a fateful meeting and date with destiny in the city of light. The night Paris started to change his wants and needs . . . started to change his life.

He tilts his gaze down, etching this moment into his memory. The woman he loves sitting silently with him on the porch, their love no longer tested by others, by miscommunications or unspoken words.

Everything he needs now wrapped in his arms.

He nestles his cheek against the top of her head and smiles.

Finally.

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