Chapter 25

She lay in his embrace.

“You good, Tish?”

She drew in a deep breath, smelled the aftereffects of their union. Snuggled against him, wondering what that feeling was that was flowing through her being. Hadn’t felt it in so long.

Oh yeah. It was joy.

She responded, in their long-ago lingo, still crazily appropriate. “I’m good.”

She felt the back of his hand stroke her cheek, his tone unusually low. “Well, then. So am I.”

She relaxed into the moment. Sighed contently.

And suddenly, unexpectedly, her nose was tweaked. “Hey!” She rose partly, turned to look at him in the semi-darkness, caught him gazing at her. Definitely heavy-lidded, but with a twinkle in his eye. “My nose? Seriously?”

“It’s a fine nose. I mean, it could use a little work, but all in all…”

And suddenly, his look shifted, his eyes widened, as he found his own nose getting tweaked.

He pawed her hand away, and she grabbed it, held on tight. Tussled with him in mid-air. “Oh no. No you don’t!”

“Actually,” he quipped, “I do.” A crunch of happiness flowed through her at the old tease between them.

“Eli.” She suddenly felt all quiet, fingers linked with his, suspended in mid-air.

He stopped on a breath. “Yeah?”

“If nothing ever changes…”

His face was instantly bathed in seriousness. As if his whole universe, all the galaxies and far-flung systems, all of it depended on her one conclusion. “Yeah?”

She looked at the face she loved, the faint scar on the side of his nose. The little laugh lines that were radiating from the side of his eyes. The patch of beard stubble that always grew a bit thicker at first, and yeah, wasn’t perfect.

And knew she knew love.

“I know it’s corny, but it works. And it’s true. We’ll always have Fifty-Four Home Again Lane.”