Oh my heart. It jumped a mile. “I did?”
“Yes. You did.” He sighed. “Can you please open this door? Can we just talk, Faye? Please. I just want to talk to you.”
I brushed the dust from the picture frame and looked again at my smile, and I knew, I knew how I felt then and I knew how I really felt now, and it was worth fucking fighting for. Worth staying for.
“I love you,” I said.
“Sorry?” his voice was nothing but shock. “What did you say?”
I sighed. “I said I love you. I should have just said it before I went running off.”
“OrIshould have.”
“Yeah, you should have.” I pressed my head to the door.
“There’s those fucking secrets again,” he said. “I think we should try and avoid them in the future, don’t you?”
I grinned, laughed, just enough that I heard him moving. “I think it would be for the best, yes.”
His hand on the door handle, I could hear it, and I was up, on my feet, my hand on there too.
“Can I come in, Faye?”
I took a breath. “It’s your fucking apartment, Andy.”
The door swung open and he was there. His face a picture I’d never forget. Sorry, and relieved, and angry, and pissed off and sore and scared and all of those things at once. “Ourapartment, Faye. It’s been our apartment since you got here. You don’t need a piece of fucking paper to tell you that. It just is.” He smiled, and he was more nervous than I’d ever seen him. “Stay,” he whispered. “Please just fucking stay with me, I don’t want to do this without you.”
“You did it just fine already,” I said. “You didn’t need me, Andy, you did just fine on your own.”
“I did need you. I just made do. And now I know just how much better it is with you back here I don’t want to do it alone. Please, Faye, just fucking stay. I’m asking you to stay.” He raised an eyebrow. “Do you want me to fucking beg, is that it? Because I’ve got a pretty sore fucking asshole, and my knuckles are pounding like a bastard, and I’m tired, and fucking achy, and my back is covered with fucking war wounds.” He rolled his eyes, “But Iwillbeg, if that’s what it will take to get your crazy fucking ass back in my bed where it belongs.”
“Beg,” I whispered. “On your knees.”
He sighed. “You’re pushing your fucking luck, Faye Devere.”
He knelt for me. Andy Morgan knelt at my fucking feet, and he brushed his fingertips up my thighs, and pulled me close. “Stay,” he said. “Please, for the love of God and everything fucking sacred, for my sake, for your sake, for our fucking club’s fucking sake,pleasejust fucking stay with me.”
I laughed, and it was a good laugh. A happy laugh. I wrapped my arms around his shoulders and held him tight.
So fucking tight.
It felt so fucking right.
“Is that a yes?” he said.
“It was a yes ten minutes ago.” I smiled. “I just wanted to hear you beg.”
***
Epilogue
Andy
“Here,” I said. “Just so you know.”
She leaned across me, staring at my screen.
Faye Helena Devere, Director.All in black and white. All official.