Page 58 of Still the One
“I get now why you wanted to come here.” I lean forward until my forehead rests against Mac’s.
“No matter what,” Mac says. “You’re still the one, Jamie. You always were.”
Warmth blooms inside me. “So are you,” I whisper.
Mac brings her hand to my chin and tilts it toward her. “Remember what I said when you asked me to marry you?”
“Um, yes?” My lips curl into a smile at the memory.
“A thousand times fucking yes,” Mac says. “I’m saying it again now. To being with you.”
“Music to my ears.” We bridge the tiny gap between us, and kiss, with the roar of the waves in the background, and a string of memories—good and bad, like life—in our hearts.
Chapter 33
Mac
I kissed Jamie in Maui. I kissed her many times since in Brooklyn, and now I’m kissing her in Rockaway Beach, Queens. I’ve been all over the place since Maui. I’ve fallen apart, again and again, but, as humans do, I’ve stitched myself back together just as many times. I couldn’t have done it for anyone else but for her because, as it turns out, the only person who could mend my soul was the one who ripped it to shreds in the first place. If I can’t help but love her, to feel this profound comfort and deep satisfaction around her, then I have to be with her. I have to give her a second chance—I have to try. I’d be a fool not to.
It helps that Jamie, in my humble opinion, is the best kisser in the universe. She must be. No one has kissed me how she has. No kiss has turned me on like hers. No kiss has changed the course of my day, my life, my existence like the very first one we shared, in my dorm room at NYU.
In college, Jamie was all tight jeans and leather jackets—and, already, all bangs falling into her eyes. When I met her at a party, I couldn’t take my eyes off her, because she was the coolest girl I’d ever seen—and that’s saying something when you go to college in New York City.
She was the opposite of me, the wholesome athlete who almost didn’t go to the party in her own dorm because we had a big game two full days later. Soccer was always much more important than anything or anyone else, because if it wasn’t for my athletic scholarship, I wouldn’t have been at New York University. But then I also wouldn’t have met Jamie.
My mother was right when she declared this nothing short of a gigantic miracle. Me being here with Jamie. More than thirty years after spotting her at that party, when our eyes met for the very first time and we didn’t have a clue what was happening, what it would be the start of, and how it would shape our lives.
Maybe my life didn’t go how I wanted it to go, but it went how it was supposed to go. I’ve learned that it’s not so much a matter of getting over things, but a matter of living through them.
Most importantly, I’ve learned that it’s possible for a heart to heal itself. Perhaps the hardest lesson to learn, but also the most necessary. Because there are no guarantees. I will get hurt again, but I will no longer choose retreat as a coping mechanism. Although shying away from romance has given me a lot in my life. I’ve covered four Olympic Games, countless world championships in any sport you can think of. I’m the country’s go-to expert in women’s and men’s soccer.
On our very first date, Jamie said I had a face for television, and even though she was just flirting, she was more right than she could have known at the time. I’ve had more dreams come true than I could ever have imagined—dreams I didn’t even know I had. Different dreams than the ones I always clung to, but beautiful, unexpected dreams nonetheless.
I worked hard but loved cautiously. Maybe it’s time to turn that around. I’m ready to love Jamie again without caution. To give her my trust. It’s the only way this can work. It’s the only way for us to, perhaps, someday have that wedding we never had. At least now it would be an actual wedding, not some stop-gap commitment ceremony with no legal value. We would be each other’s spouse. I would be Jamie Sullivan’s wife. I would be everything I’ve ever wanted to be—successful in life and love.
“I brought The Thing,” Jamie whispers in my ear.
I smile in response, even though it’s not what I want right now. I only want to feel her. Her tongue. Her fingers. Her lips all over me. “Maybe tomorrow,” I say in between breathy groans.
Jamie replies by kissing me more deeply. By intensifying the grasp of her hands on my body. By undoing my shirt buttons and pushing me onto the bed. We kiss and kiss and manage to get our clothes off while we do. It’s not always like this, but sometimes, like today, there’s an urgency to our lovemaking, like we do still have all that time to catch up on. But we can’t bring back time. All we can do is enjoy the time we have now and, hopefully, the decades left together.
Jamie’s body is glued to mine. She stops kissing me for a moment and gazes into my eyes. I look back at her. She’s still as hot as the first time I saw her, when I was convinced she was too cool for me. Jamie’s beautiful, no matter the mistakes she made. I forgive her for everything because I want to. Because it’s all I want—because she’s all I ever wanted.
She brings two fingers to my lips and I instinctively open my mouth. Gently, her fingers slip inside and I twirl my tongue around them. I suck her fingers deep into my mouth, as deep as I want them inside me later.
With nothing but tenderness in her glance, Jamie lets her fingers slide out. Her hand travels between my legs. Her fingertips circle my clit. My breath hitches in my throat. Her fingers dip lower. As she pushes inside, I know that this, too, will always heal my soul. This connection between us that I’ve never found with anyone else.
A perk of being a regular on TV is getting hit on by the most gorgeous, intriguing women. Some of whom I invited into my bed, but none of them could ever make me feel how Jamie did, because I didn’t love them the way I loved Jamie. Maybe they crashed into the wall I raised around myself, and my heart. But that no longer matters. The wall is gone.
From the get-go, from that first kiss in Maui, followed by that embarrassingly quick first climax, my body knew what my brain couldn’t possibly accept yet. Jamie has always been the one. It’s time I focus on what we can still have rather than on what we didn’t.
Right now, all my focus is on her magic voodoo fingers inside me. As though her fingers alone possess the power to, in a matter of minutes, take me there. To the place of highest pleasure. Because I still know her, and she still knows me. Because there are things you don’t forget, no matter how much time you spend apart.
“I love you,” I groan, as Jamie makes me come again, as only she can.
Chapter 34
Jamie
