Chapter Twenty-Eight
It was some kind of autopilot that made Noah keep running. The years of training that got him to put one foot in front of the other without thinking. He had to keep doing his job. He had to get his team to the end.
No matter how much he wanted to stop, turn around, and run back to ask Amanda if she’d really meant everything she’d said.
And if the answer was yes—what then?
The question almost made him stumble as he crossed the finish line. Just because she said she didn’t want this to be over didn’t mean they could snap their fingers and make it so. All the problems that had been there before were still just as present. The move. His new job. His brother, who he couldn’t very well abandon days before they were scheduled to leave. The nagging worry that his brother was right, and it was too soon after Kristina, too soon after making so many changes, to have a clue what was a good idea or not.
At least the race was over, and everyone was cheering and elated to have finished. He’d completed what he had to accomplish—the race, his coaching. He finished congratulating his group on an amazing job.
Then, when everyone finally began to disperse and he had a moment to himself, he unzipped the small side pocket in his running shorts and pulled out a piece of paper.
“Hey, nice job.”
He looked up. He hadn’t expected his brother to come, let alone meet him at the finish.
“What are you doing here?”
“I needed to talk to you. What’s that?”
Noah’s stomach twisted. Luke gestured toward the paper, soggy with sweat. He unfolded it slowly.
“It’s my plane ticket,” he said. “For L.A.”
There was a beat of silence between them.
“You know that I think about stuff when I run,” he explained. “It’s the best time for me to focus. I brought the ticket because…” He took a breath. “This is something I needed to think a hell of a lot about.”
Luke nodded slowly. “And how’d the thinking go?”
Noah had stared at the ticket the whole subway ride to the race. He’d taken it out again at the starting line. Even when he was prepping everyone to get warmed up and ready, he’d been thinking about the flight. His decision. Not what he’d planned. Not what he’d previously decided. But what he wanted. Now.
He hadn’t known known if Amanda would take him back. She’d made it pretty clear that they were over. But that hadn’t meant he was going to roll over and give up without trying.
And then she’d found him in the race, and hope had beat so hard in his chest, he could barely run without tripping over his own feet. Without stopping and wrapping his arms around her and never, ever letting go.
He didn’t need to look at the ticket anymore. Not when he knew what he wanted. Not when it was already, achingly clear what he had to do.
He put it back in his pocket.
“I know I made you a promise,” he said. “I’m the reason you got a new job and are ready to uproot your life. But she’s the one.” He shook his head, and then he said it. “I can’t lose her. And that means I can’t go to L.A.”
He waited for Luke to explode. He was backing out of everything they’d planned.
But to his surprise, his brother smiled. Wider than Noah had ever seen before.
“Thank God,” Luke said, pumping his fist. “Because otherwise I was going to have to bar you from getting on that plane, and things would get seriously ugly.”
“What?” Noah asked, stunned.
Luke put an arm on his shoulder. “I’ve been thinking a lot, too,” he said. “And I was wrong about Amanda. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said those things to you. Or to her. Honestly, I didn’t realize. I thought this was some casual thing, and it seemed stupid to blow everything up over nothing. The move, your job, everything you’d said about taking time to figure things out after Kristina. And, you know.” He took a breath. “Us.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you when it started,” Noah said. “I should have. I just didn’t know how. I didn’t know when. For a while, I still didn’t know what I was doing.”
“I get it.” Luke held up his palm. “It was definitely weird at first, if I’m honest. But you know what? It’s your life—you don’t have to run it by me. And you’re allowed to change your mind. You’re allowed to, I don’t know, change.”
“This has to work,” Noah said, feeling almost frantic now. “I have to find her. I have to tell her I’m staying.”
Luke spun him so he was facing the finish line and gave him a shove. “Go!”
“I don’t know where she is. I don’t have my phone. I don’t even know where she went.” Something else dawned on him. “Wait. How’d you know she was here?”
Luke held out his phone and pulled up the GPS from a bib, number 3974. Noah could see how far along the runner was and the checkpoints they’d passed. But so what?
“What am I looking at?” he asked.
Luke shoved the phone in his face, like that made anything clear. “It’s Amanda’s badge. I was texting with Alix,” he went on when Noah still looked at him blankly. “She was bummed about missing the race. But she said at least she didn’t lose the registration fee. Even though she couldn’t figure out why Amanda suddenly wanted to run.”
“She found me,” he said. “At the beginning of the race. But then she dropped out.”
Luke showed him the dot on his phone again. “Either the GPS is wrong, or your girl is still in it.”
Your girl.
Noah heard the words clearly. Like his brother was sure that Amanda was his.
His heart swelled. All he could do was run.
He pushed back through the crowd heading toward the finish line. Heading past it. There were still people running the race, and now he ran against them, sticking to the side of the road, tackling the whole thing in reverse. He was doing it wrong—he was doing everything wrong. But he had to find her.
At last he spotted her, tired but still moving, a look of pure fury in her eyes. Or what he would have thought was fury before he got to know her. Before he knew her well enough to realize it was her determination, her drive. The face she wore when she wanted something badly enough to do anything for it.
And from the looks of it, what she wanted was to finish this thing.
He turned and pulled up beside her, immediately falling into her stride.
“What are you doing?” she asked, although she was breathing so hard that it took about four steps for the full question to come out.
“Making sure you don’t die,” he said.
“I’m not your pity case. I can do this myself.”
“I know you can. You can do anything.” He paused. “But wouldn’t it be so much better to do it with somebody else?”
She turned to him. Finally. It was like something lifted from her eyes and she remembered who he was. Who she was. Who they were, together.
“If you’re here to break up with me again,” she said, still gasping, “please—wait until this awful hell is over. I don’t think I can handle it.”
He kept running beside her. She looked at him again.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he told her. “From now on, that’s something you’re going to have to get used to.”
She stumbled, and he reached out to grab her elbow and keep her from falling, but she caught her trip and kept moving.
“What—” she started, but it was too much to finish the sentence and run at the same time.
“Don’t talk,” he said. “Just run. And listen.”
He waited for her to protest. Make some comeback. Argue that he couldn’t tell her what to do. But she kept breathing like he’d taught her and let him talk.
“I can’t believe it, Amanda,” he said, his mind still reeling. “I can’t believe you came here, and I can’t believe you said those things. I’m so sorry. I don’t want you to say anything,” he added quickly when it looked like she was about to try talking again. “Just let me say that I’m sorry. Let me own that. I took the easy way out, staying on the path I’d been on before. But you’re right. Just because I decided something before doesn’t mean it’s still what I want.” He took a deep breath. “Not when what I want is you.”
For all the uncertainty he’d felt before, he knew that. Knew it the way he knew the sound of pavement beneath his feet, the surge of air in his lungs. There was so much he didn’t have figured out. But for once, he understood that he didn’t have to.
He didn’t have to plan each step he’d take or know every curve that was coming. He only had to listen to the contents of his heart. Every leap of his pulse was saying one thing and one thing only.
“I want you,” he repeated. “And I want my life to be with you. I don’t even care where that is as long as you’re a part of it. You make me better every day. You make me more thoughtful. You make me brave.” He shook his head, hardly believing himself because it wasn’t like he’d planned any of this. But wasn’t that the point? No one could plan out a talk like this or figure out what to say in advance. He could only think it and say it. Trust it wouldn’t be wrong.
Or, if it was, that they’d work together to make it right.
“I never imagined anything happening between us, Amanda. And when it did, I never imagined it would grow into more. And then when that did, I guess the only thing to say is that I panicked. I had this whole plan with Luke and L.A., and I clung to it like it was some life vest—the only thing that could save me after my future went up in smoke. But I don’t need saving.” He grabbed her hand as they kept running. “I only need you. And I need to be okay with not having a plan at all times and okay with not knowing the future and what’s to come. I think I can do that, Amanda. As long as you’ll stay by my side.”
He thought she was trying to say something. Or maybe that was just her breathing. But finally, she got one word out: “Luke.”
“Luke will be fine. He can find a new roommate in California. He can kick ass at PlayStation. Or he can stay in New York. Or try L.A. for a little while and then decide. No matter what, you know what’s awesome? He can do what he wants. You know what else is awesome?” He grinned. He couldn’t help it. It was the race and the cheers and the adrenaline and the way that Amanda kept pushing forward by his side.
It was the things he was saying. The love in his heart.
“What?” she managed to gasp.
“I can do whatever I want, too.”
“Are you sure, though? I don’t want to—”
He touched her arm, to stop her from wasting her breath on an objection he wasn’t going to listen to anyway. Then he slowed to a walk. She slowed beside him, clutching her side.
“Deep, even breaths,” he told her to help with the cramp. Then he reached back into his pocket and pulled out the ticket.
“I can do what I want,” he repeated. “And this is it.”
He showed her the printout of his ticket to L.A. Then, in the middle of the race, the last runners and walkers weaving around them, he ripped it up and placed the pieces in her hands.
“Are you serious?” she said, staring at the scraps.
“I love you,” he said, cupping her hands in his. “And I’m staying in New York so I can keep on loving you more. No matter what happens between us, my life belongs with yours. I won’t always know the answers. Everything might not go according to plan. But I know what I want. It’s what I’ve wanted this whole time we’ve been together. It’s you. Whatever else happens, it’s always going to be you.”
He thought that would be it. They’d said what they needed to. Now they could get off the race course and put this behind them.
But Amanda took the ripped-up paper and shoved it back at him. Then she started to run.
He scrambled to catch up again. “What are you doing?” he asked.
“I have to finish.”
“You don’t have to prove anything to me.”
She shook her head and kept going, gritting her teeth against the strain. Goddammit, why’d he have to go and fall for someone so stubborn?
But he wouldn’t have it any other way.
When Amanda set her mind to something, she was all in. If she was going to be all in with him, he knew that meant it had to be the real deal. They were committed to each other, and that wasn’t going to change anymore.
Besides, he didn’t have years of training for nothing. He’d coached people through worse. Hell, he’d run through worse himself. If there was one thing he knew he could do, that he trusted himself to succeed at, it was getting her through this.
“Slow down,” he told her, shifting his stride for her to match.
She tried to protest, telling him again that she was going to finish, but he pressed his palm to the middle of her back to adjust her position and told her he wasn’t telling her to stop. Just slow down. “Set a pace where you know you can finish. It doesn’t have to be fast. It doesn’t have to be pretty. But this is how you’ll get it done.”
And then he coached her through it. Her time, her form, her breathing. Walking when she needed to walk. Urging her back to a jog when it was time. She was panting and sweating and cursing so profusely, every step another “fuck” under her breath, he couldn’t help laughing his ass off. Until she was laughing too hard to tell him how much everything hurt.
“I know it hurts,” he said. “That’s how you know you’re working.”
It seemed, in some weird way, like the truest thing he knew. Love could hurt…but it would be so much worse not to feel anything at all. Not to try, and fail, and try again. Not to get up and keep going.
He urged her on the same way he’d done around the reservoir, running from one tree to the next, and the next, and the next, until they were crossing the finish line and Amanda was falling into his arms and he was holding her up. Holding her in the way he wanted to for the rest of his life.
“Water,” she panted, and he helped her take small sips.
“This is the worst I love you I could have imagined,” she said. “I feel like I’m dying.”
“That’s how you know it’s real. No one would ever ask for this if they could choose another way.”
She laughed, clutching her side. “I can’t believe you willingly do this all the time.”
“It gets easier.” He paused, thinking about it. “Actually, it doesn’t. But you get stronger. Then you set the bar higher, and then you push yourself even more.”
“Not a chance,” she grumbled. “I’m never doing anything like this again.”
He leaned in close. “Just think of the massage you’ll get later,” he whispered, already imagining her body in his hands, what he was going to do to her…
“Promise?” she asked, her eyes lighting up with a spark that made him weaker in the knees than any race could do.
“You can count on it.”
You can count on me.
But when he suggested they go find Luke, he felt her pull back.
“Are you sure?” she asked uncertainly. “This still feels new. I’m happy. I want to stay happy.”
Noah smiled. Really smiled. The first one he’d felt in a long time.
“Luke’s happy for me. For us,” he added. “For you.”
She looked up at him and frowned. “He’s not going to be mad?”
“He’s the one who told me you were still running. He had your bib on the GPS.”
Amanda looked completely surprised, until he explained everything that had happened since she found him in the race. While she stood there, stunned, he took her in his arms and held her, the two of them flushed and sweaty and perfect.
“I already told him I’m not getting on that plane. I’m glad he’s happy for me. But even if he wasn’t—it’s still my decision.”
She eased into him, and he felt the way the hug turned into more. The way they held each other up. The way they stood there as one.
Finally, she pulled away. But only a little. Only enough to take his hand and say, “Let’s go be happy together.”
“With brunch?” he asked. “I’m starving.”
She laughed. “Let’s always be happy with brunch.”
She went to start walking, but he tugged her arm back once again.
“What?” she asked.
“I love you.” He kissed her forehead and closed his eyes, savoring the feeling of being so near her. For all the seconds, minutes, hours, days—all the years to come. “I just didn’t want to miss another opportunity to tell you.”
“I love you, too,” she said. “So I hope you’re okay with hearing it, because I plan on saying it a lot.”
“Baby,” he said with a laugh. “You have no idea. I can’t wait to hear it every goddamn day.”
He hooked his arm through hers and started walking down the path. Toward his brother, toward breakfast, toward the city traffic waking up to another weekend in Manhattan.
Toward the rest of his life.