by Sarah Sutton
“I might have an idea,” he murmured in response, kissing that finger, sending a flicker of flames down my spine. “Every writer needs their notebook.”
I wrapped my arms around Walsh’s waist and held on tight, basking in his embrace, even as the rain still sprinkled from the sky.
I’d been so close to losing this, to missing out on this. On never feeling his arms around me again, never feeling his lips brush the top of my head, never feeling his fluttering heartbeat through his shirt. I’d been too consumed in my own life, my own world, that I almost lost this entirely.
But Mom and Edith were right. I wasn’t by myself in life; others were around me. It wasn’t just about me and my dreams, and I thanked the universe and all the stars in the sky that my eyes opened before it was too late.
Chapter Twenty-Five
I didn’t have an article to submit to Mrs. Gao by the deadline, but I didn’t feel sad about it. It really felt bittersweet. Before, I’d been dead-set on reinstating the newspaper at school, that that was the only key to my future in journalism. But it wasn’t, not by a long shot. Just because Bayview High didn’t have a newspaper didn’t mean I had to stop writing. Just because I wasn’t going to get the senior internship at the Blade didn’t mean my career was over.
This summer gave me something I didn’t have before: perspective. Everything happened for a reason—I knew that now, from how everything worked out with my parents and with Walsh—and I believed that my writing would work out, too.
Positive Thinking and I were now BFFs.
The day after the school’s board meeting, Mom, Walsh, Dad, and I all sat in the living room watching a movie. Walsh and I cuddled up on the chaise lounge while Mom and Dad sat on the couch together.
My cell chimed with an email going through, and I saw that Mrs. Gao sent me an email that read “Stay by your phone today.” I brushed it off, thinking she’d sent it to the wrong person.
Well, I’d thought that until my cell phone started to ring. “Hello?” I said, taking a glance at Walsh. He’d been running his fingertips along the side of my leg, which was pressed against his, but now stilled, eyes on me. Dad paused the movie, filling the air with silence.
“Is this Sophia Wallace?” The voice was light and feminine.
I pushed my glasses up my nose, wary. “This is she.”
Walsh’s lips twitched as he went back to tracing my leg.
“My name is Leanne Ferris,” she said. “I’m the editorial director at the Bayview Blade.”
The phone nearly tumbled from my grip as my fingers spasmed, and then I froze, still as a statue.
“Last night I was at Bayview High’s board meeting to report for the paper and I ran into a Mrs. Gao. She talked a lot about your writing skill and showed me your article about paper straws you wrote a few years back.” She paused. “It was very insightful and informative. I was hoping you’d allow us to run it in next week’s issue.”
My hand slapped over Walsh’s hand on my leg and I squeezed, nearly grinding his bones together. “R-Run my article in the Bayview Blade?”
“What?” Mom gasped, eyes wide.
“I understand that your journalism program at school was cut this school year,” she went on as if she couldn’t hear the building freak-out in my voice. “To apply for our senior internship, the school must have an active journalism department.”
Words, Sophia, spit them out. “Um, right.”
“I’d like to extend a direct internship at the Bayview Blade for you personally. That is, if you were thinking of applying.” I could hear her chuckle slightly over the phone. “With an article like that, Ms. Wallace, I’d be surprised if you didn’t.”
“You’re offering me an internship?” I repeated, unable to keep the mad grin from my face. She’d said Ms. Wallace. So professional and real. Am I dreaming? “At the Blade?”
She sounded amused. “Yes, I am.”
I blinked at the frozen image on the TV screen, my brain short-circuiting. Dad nodded his head eagerly at me, mouthing at me to answer her.
It wasn’t until Walsh squeezed my hand that I snapped back to reality, the words coming out in a rush. “I-I accept. Yes, I accept wholeheartedly.” I’m mere seconds from screaming. “Thank you so, so much, Ms. Ferris.”
“Swing by the office when you can and I’ll give you a tour,” she told me, and then added, “The Blade will be lucky to have you, Sophia.”
When she hung up, I held the phone to my ear still, savoring the moment. Savoring the feeling. The fire that was still in my veins, the elation that was consuming me. My body was hot, hot, hot, and everyone in the room was staring at me with wide, impatient eyes, sharing these emotions with me.
Walsh still gripped my hand, waiting for my reaction. “Let it out, Sophie,” he said with the biggest grin on his face. “Let it out.”
After trying so hard to hold it in, to hold all the excitement and energy back, I started to squeal. When the rest of them joined in on my cheering, it was a while before we stopped.
And I’d never felt so at home in my house, with Walsh’s arms around me, his lips against my temple, and my parents grinning from ear to ear. I’d never felt so loved.
Epilogue
The November breeze was comforting and cool, lingering on any skin I’d left exposed. I shivered a little, thinking about how Mom would say I should go inside before I caught a chill. But I didn’t want to. Not yet.
Mom hit her five-month mark yesterday in her pregnancy, her baby bump as round as a basketball. The argument nowadays was that a perfect bump meant it was a boy, but Dad was sticking with his hopes of another girl.
And they were getting excited—baby things littered the whole house, bassinets and toys and unisex clothes, since they were determined not to know until the baby was born. “It’ll be exciting,” Mom would say, trying to convince us. “It’ll make the day that much more special.”
If it were two against one, Dad and I totally would’ve won. But, of course, Walsh sided with Mom.
“It’s her decision,” Walsh said for the millionth time now, his breath warming the top of my head. His arms around me pulled me closer still, my back flush with his chest. “But, c’mon, Sophie, you have to admit that knowing takes some of the fun away.”
We were sitting out on the porch swing in front of my house, one Dad installed for Mom toward the end of summer. It was nice when the weather was still warm, but since it was now late November, it seemed insane that Walsh and I were out here. But as the wind tipped us slowly forward and back, I found I couldn’t care less.
We both wore jackets, a heavy blanket over our legs, and Walsh’s body heat enveloped me. I was more than content. “She just likes to do things the hard way.”
“Like someone else I know,” Walsh teased, pressing his mouth against the crown of my head. His warm breath caused a shiver to break out over my skin, slipping down my spine. “Your article in the Blade last week was one of your best ones yet, Sophia.”
The internship at the Bayview Blade originally started out as a learn and write on your own sort of deal, but once the editors read more of my work, they gave me a little column in the back twice a month. This past week I’d written an open letter to my selfish self at the beginning of summer. “It felt strange writing it after everything that’s happened.”
“I loved reading it.”
I made a face. “You say that about every article.”
“That’s because I love everything you write,” he murmured. “You’re my favorite author.”
I snorted, cupping my hands over his. “That’s an easy pedestal to stand on when you don’t read.”
Walsh lightly tickled my side and I yelped, grabbing his fingers to get him to stop. They were icy to the touch, and I exhaled onto them, much like he had once upon a time. “When are we leaving to meet Edith and Zach?”
We were going to see a movie down at Buckley’s Theatre for a double date, something we tried to do once a week. Edith and Zach had
come a long way from where they’d been at the end of the summer. Their whole “just friends” spiel lasted until the beginning of October, until they both realized how stupid they were being. Thankfully. They were so adorable together.
I grabbed at Walsh’s wrist, pushed his jacket sleeve up, and exposed his forearm to look at his watch’s face. “Probably leave in ten minutes.”
“Probably?”
“I like sitting here with you.” I snuggled deeper, glancing up. “I may never move.”
His cheeks were red from the cold, making his skin look ten times paler, but he grinned down at me like I was the sun sitting beside him. “I love sitting out here with you.” And he grinned, tracing the frame of my lens with a light touch. “And I love your glasses.”
I rolled my eyes at him. “You always have to one-up me.”
He kissed the tip of my nose. “Is your family still coming over for Thanksgiving dinner next week? Mom has been researching recipes for the past month.”
“Hopefully ‘turkey’ is on her list.”
“Sounds familiar,” he chuckled. “It’s been keeping her busy, which is good. When she came home from the rehabilitation center, they told her to take up a hobby. I guess cooking was her choice.”
“Janet will just have to be housekeeper/nanny/therapist now. Take the title of ‘chef’ off.”
“As long as she still bakes her cookies.”
I turned back to face the street, settling against the steady heartbeat that thumped along my spine. “We’re still coming—we wouldn’t miss it. And I wouldn’t miss Janet’s peach pie.”
“Right.” Walsh dragged the word out. “Her peach pie. That’s all you’re coming for.”
The swing creaked slightly as a small gust of wind knocked it backward, and I shivered against Walsh. “I’m surprised you didn’t freeze your butt off today. Practicing in this weather must suck.”
When Walsh called the coach of the Fenton County league the Monday after the final baseball game, Tom had immediately asked him if he’d like to play for their team for the following season. Of course, Walsh said yes, but on one condition. He needed a promise that they played for the love of baseball, not for the love of winning. They’d said that they admired his honesty and sportsmanship, and loved that he did the right thing rather than just join in.
“It’s not too bad. We’re moving to a gym once snow falls.”
“Probably a good thing.” I smiled. With those words, I pushed up from the swing, tearing the blanket from my legs and standing. The cold air hit me, and I fought back a shiver as I turned to stretch my hands out to him. “We should go.”
Walsh’s golden eyebrows were pulled together as he looked up at me. “It definitely hasn’t been ten minutes.”
“I know, but Edith will get mad if we’re late again. You know how she gets if she misses a preview.”
Walsh swiped my hands up in his, but instead of standing, he pulled me down into his lap. The porch swing groaned as it swung backward, rocking us closer. Walsh gave me a wicked grin, his blue-green sea eyes heating deeper, pupils threatening to swallow the color. “We still have a few more minutes,” he insisted, voice pitching lower. “Besides, it’s payback for all the times they’ve been late.”
I was going to tell him that most of the time it wasn’t her fault—her volleyball practices had kept her later while they were still in season—but I pressed my mouth against his instead. I loved that a spark still electrocuted my skin when we touched, when we kissed, the air between us zapping to life as if struck by lightning. I wanted to stay like this for hours, just him and me.
Walsh tugged his lips only a centimeter from mine, chest rising and falling in an uneven breath. When he smiled, it was wide and terribly cute, filled with a happiness that I’m sure mirrored the budding I felt inside. His words brushed my lips. “I love you, Sophie.”
Four words filled with so much emotion it made my head spin and my skin flush. Walsh Hunter gave me the grin that was designed just for me: a smile that lit the sun, put a glow to the moon, and ignited all the stars.
I moved to press my lips to his, speaking softly against them. “And I love you.”
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WHAT ARE FRIENDS FOR?
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Also by Sarah Sutton
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If the Broom Fits (Coming Soon!)