Someday Maybe (23 page)
Authors: Ophelia London
Tags: #Colleen Hoover, #second chance romance, #Someday Maybe, #Definitely Maybe in Love, #Cora Carmack, #Jane Austen, #Ophelia London, #Tammara Webber, #Romance, #Embrace, #entangled, #college, #New Adult, #Abbi Glines, #Definitely Maybe
Oliver lifted his chin to glance over the back of the couch. “Huh. No idea.” He lay back down. “Listen to the rain,” he whispered, trailing a lazy finger up my spine. I buried my nose in his neck, then pressed a cheek against his chest.
I’d rather listen to your heart.
“Do you have to go back to Vancouver tomorrow?”
“Hell, no.” He nuzzled into my neck. “They know they have to start getting along without me.” He held back my hair to look at me. “I gave notice. I know that scares you, but it’s not like before, Rach. You don’t have to be afraid of a future with me.”
“I’m not.” I smiled, so touched by his concern. “I understand now what taking a leap of faith means. I want to do that with you, and I was serious when I thanked you before. You probably don’t realize the effect you’ve had on me—on the decisions I’ve been making lately about my job.” I placed my hand over his. “I might be quitting, too. Sooner than later.”
“Really?” He squeezed my hand, almost like he was afraid I might bolt. But he had no idea how my decision only made me feel closer to him. After a moment, his grip relaxed. “You mentioned
Redbook
earlier.”
“They offered me a pretty good freelance contract for a newbie. I never thought I’d even consider leaving the security of corporate America for the great unknown.”
He kissed my temple. “We’ll take that leap together.”
“Thank you.” I hovered over his mouth for a second, then kissed him. Hard.
“You’re welcome,” he said, sucking in an inhale when I allowed him to breathe again. “Though I’m not sure what I did.”
“You were just being you.”
He ran a hand down my back, curling it around my hip. “What time are you going into work tomorrow?”
“Hmm.” I wrapped a leg around his. “I think I’m feeling another round of appendicitis coming on. Better stay home.”
“Finally some good timing for us.” He pulled me onto his chest, kissed me, told me he’d missed me and that he loved me. While locked in his arm, it was like something had been returned to me, a missing piece from my soul I didn’t know was gone. Suddenly, I remembered how it felt to be one half of two.
A while later, Oliver nodded off. When I rolled off the couch, he jerked awake and grabbed my hand. “Where are you going?”
I knelt down and leaned over his sleepy face. “Shhh.” I ran a hand through the front of his hair. “I need my phone. I want to leave my boss a voicemail about tomorrow.”
He yawned and rubbed his nose, eyes closed. “Tell Moron Bruce you won’t be in ‘til next week.” He ran his hand down my arm, resting it on my hipbone. “I had a scary dream, so you can’t leave me.”
It was my turn to watch him sleep. And later, waking up. My favorite part, too.
I kissed his eyelids. “Never.”
The power was still out and the room felt stuffy, so I cranked opened one of the huge picture windows. Fresh air and sounds of the city drifted in. I inhaled and leaned against the ledge, staring out at the San Francisco skyline, only partially lit.
I placed that call to Bruce, and Oliver and I didn’t leave his house for three days, living quite contently on pancakes and Chinese delivery and each other. I sent Sarah one text: the “thumbs-up” emoticon. I sent Oliver one text from bed: the heart with an arrow.
…
Six months after I’d left NRG Interactive, I reminded him of something else I remembered from that night at the hospital. “You promised we’d get married and have ten kids, Oliver.
And
you said you would take me away.”
He stood from the couch, walked over to where I sat at the dining room table, and closed my laptop with the new manuscript I was preparing for
Redbook
. “Such impatience, Rach.” He smiled. “Four days from now isn’t soon enough?”
I glanced past his shoulder at the long garment bag hanging outside the closet. It was unzipped, showing the top of my new white dress, the one Oliver hadn’t seen yet.
I bit my lip and looked up at him. “Why didn’t we elope?”
“Because our sisters would kill us.” He pulled me off my chair and into his arms. After a quick squeeze, he took my left hand, kissed the spot next to my diamond ring, then moved my hand to the top of his right shoulder. “And because I wouldn’t miss this for the world.” We did a slow box step around the dining room, while he hummed our “first dance” song in my ear.
I smiled so big my cheeks hurt, while I clung to Oliver…the man of my dreams, my partner and coach in taking scary leaps, the nineteen-year-old boy who brought me
Dawson’s Creek
and took care of me every day.
“After this technicality is out of our way”—he spun me under his arm then bent to kiss my neck—“we’ll get started on those ten kids. Twenty, even.”
“Keep dreaming,” I whispered.
Did you love this Embrace? Check out more of our new adult titles
here
!
And for exclusive sneak peeks at our upcoming books, excerpts, contests, chats with our authors and editors, and more…
Be sure to like us on
Facebook
Follow us on
Twitter
Acknowledgments
Thank you to my tireless Entangled Publishing team for making another book dream of mine come true. Thank you to unbelievably patient and amazing friends who helped me by reading drafts, listening to me rant, meeting for lunches, and being on IM whenever I was super needy—which has been pretty often lately. Hugs and kisses and sexy guys in suits to you all!
About the Author
USA Today bestselling author
Ophelia London
was born and raised among the redwood trees in beautiful northern California. Once she was fully educated, she decided to settle in Florida, but her car broke down in Texas and she’s lived in Dallas ever since. A cupcake and treadmill aficionado (obviously those things are connected), she spends her time watching arthouse movies and impossibly trashy TV, while living vicariously through the characters in the books she writes. Ophelia is the author of SOMEDAY MAYBE; DEFINITELY, MAYBE IN LOVE; ABBY ROAD; the Perfect Kisses series including: FALLING FOR HER SOLDIER, PLAYING AT LOVE, SPEAKING OF LOVE, and MAKING WAVES; and the upcoming Sugar City series for Entangled’s Bliss line. Visit her at
ophelialondon.com
. But don’t call when The Vampire Diaries is on.
Sign up for our
Steals & Deals newsletter
and be the first to hear about 99¢ releases from Ophelia London and other fantastic Entangled authors!
Reviews help other readers find books. We appreciate all reviews, whether positive or negative. Thank you for reading!
Also by Ophelia London...
Spring Honeycutt will do whatever it takes to get her sustainable living thesis published. “Whatever it takes,” however, means forming a partnership with the very hot, very privileged, very conceited Henry Knightly. As they work on her thesis, Spring finds there’s more to Henry than his old money and argyle sweaters…but can she drop the loud-and-proud act long enough to let him in?
Love Bites: a Sugar City novella
the Perfect Kisses series
Discover more New Adult titles from Entangled…
After the medical world was shaken by scandal, with Payton Daniels’s family at the center, Payton left everything behind and hid within the anonymity of college. But Payton’s ex, Blake Hiller, hasn’t forgiven her for leaving, and now he’s in her medical ethics class. Forced together again, their passion for each other reignites, but when Payton is asked to testify in her father’s high-profile trial, she must choose between risking her acceptance into medical school to help her father, and losing the only guy she’s ever loved.
Dumped by her college boyfriend for her best friend, the last thing Jenna Brandt needs is to be around her backstabbing-BFF’s hotter-than-hot brother, Sutton Bell. When he offers her a chance to get revenge on her ex, she can hardly say no—even if spending time with Sutton puts her heart in jeopardy all over again. Sutton’s determined to convince Jenna he’s not the player he used to be, but saving his sister from making an awful mistake might mean losing Jenna for good.
Everyone knows musician Jack Moreland. He’s famous. Impossibly handsome. Completely untouchable. But what none of Natalie Jamison’s old clique knows is that in high school, Natalie and Jack fell in love. And their secret relationship was incredible, painful—and earth-shattering enough to inspire an entire album.
Natalie’s spent five years trying to forget the girl she was in high school: popular, pretty…and, okay, mean. Now in her twenties and living back home, she must prove she is good enough—to her friends, to herself, and most of all, to the small-town boy turned worldwide heartthrob she never forgot.
Willa Peet isn’t interested in love. She’s been there, done that, and has the shattered heart to prove it. Ready to shake the breakup, she heads to Dublin, Ireland. But there’s a problem. A dark-haired, blue-eyed problem with a bad attitude that rivals her own. And he’s not doling out friendly Irish welcomes. Shane Claymore is only in Dublin long enough to sell the Claymore Inn and get things in order for his mother and younger sister. Meeting a sarcastic American girl makes him question everything, but will their pasts destroy any hope of a future together?
It’s been two years since twenty-year-old Jordan had a boyfriend. Now she’s off to spend her junior year in Aberdeen, Scotland, the perfect place to stop waiting for Mr. Right and just enjoy Mr. Right Now. Noah’s perfect. After being trapped together outside the train’s loo, he kisses her like she’s never been kissed before. But Aberdeen is supposed to be about fun rather than waiting for life to happen, and Noah makes Jordan reconsider what love is and how far she’s willing to go for the right guy.