The Lying Season (Seasons #1) - K.A. Linde Page 0,94

I said, offering her my hand.

And after a few seconds, she placed hers in mine. “I want this.”

A smile lit up my features. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” she said, fighting back a smile. “I can’t believe we’re really here. Honestly, I felt like the worst was going to happen. That, at any minute, you were going to change your mind. Perhaps I’m a bit traumatized by the past.”

I brought her hand to my lips and placed a kiss on it. “I don’t want to leave you ever again.”

“I think I’d like that.” She looked down and then back up at me under her long, full lashes. “So…where are you staying tonight?”

“Well, I planned to stay with Court.”

“I’m thinking no,” she said, standing up and pulling me out of the booth. “I haven’t slept in, like, forty-eight hours. You can stay with me and make me sleep.”

“Is that what we’re calling it nowadays?”

She laughed and then threw her arms around me and kissed me. Relief flooded through my body as I held her in this ridiculous greasy burger joint and knew that she was mine. That we weren’t so jaded by our pasts to screw up something this incredible. That, despite all odds, we’d found each other again. And we were going to make it work.

We headed out together, taking a cab uptown. I thought she had been kidding when she said that she wanted to sleep, but as soon as we walked in the house, she stripped out of her clothes and nearly face-planted into the bed.

“Did you honestly not sleep at all?” I asked, pulling back the covers and tucking her legs in.

She shook her head. “I was a hot mess. I couldn’t seem to shut my brain off. I think I passed out right when English got back.”

I grimaced. “Oh yeah. I heard about English being back. She really laid into Court.”

Lark yawned dramatically and reached for me. “She’s going through something. It’ll blow over.”

“Sucks.”

“Yeah. That’s a word for it.”

I came around to her side of the bed and crouched down in front of her. “Can I give you something?”

Her green eyes were hooded as she nodded.

Then I retrieved a wrapped gift from my suit pocket. I’d gone back to my place in Brooklyn for it. I’d been planning to give it to her later. After the primary, when we won. A victory gift. But it felt right now.

“What is it?” she said, leaning up on one elbow.

I passed it to her. “A gift for you.”

She took it in her hands and slowly peeled back the wrapping paper. It fluttered to the floor, and in her hand was a small, hand-carved, wooden lark.

“Oh wow,” she breathed. “When did you have time for this?”

“You find time for things that are important.”

“You made me one of these on the presidential campaign.”

I nodded. “I did. I figured that one was probably gone. And you might need a replacement.”

“Actually,” she said softly, “I was waiting to show you…”

She opened up the second drawer of her nightstand and removed an object wrapped in tissue paper. She undid it and showed me the lark that I’d carved for her.

“You kept it all this time?” I asked in surprise.

“I couldn’t get rid of it. Even when I got rid of everything else. It felt too…personal.” She held the two larks together. “And now, they’re a matched set.”

“Like us.”

She hummed appreciatively and set the two larks down on her nightstand to watch over us. Then she patted the bed next to her. “Sleep.”

I laughed. “You really do just want to sleep.”

Her eyes were half-glazed over. “The stress is finally all gone. Well, except for your job. We’ll figure that out.”

I stripped out of my suit and crawled into bed, carefully tucking her back into my chest. “You sound so confident about that.”

“You’re good at what you do. We can find something.”

“You know, it took weeks for me to get the job on campaign after the other company closed.”

She turned in to face me and met my steady gaze. “I’m going to sound Upper East Side here, but you didn’t have me before. You didn’t have our group of friends. It’s different now. And I know that sounds snooty or whatever, but I’ve kind of come to terms with it. This is who I am. It has some benefits, and we’ll use them to get you a job that you enjoy.”

I brushed her wild red hair out of her face. “I feel lucky then that