“I heard you needed a date,” she said, her voice shaking.
Dylan smiled. “You came to be my date?”
She nodded and shrugged. “You look good in a tux. I like your scruff.” She reached up and put her palm on his bearded cheek.
He covered her hand with his, rubbing his face against it. He’d missed her softness. “How long are you here?”
“For…ever?” she asked quietly.
Dylan raised his eyebrows. “Did you say—?”
“Forever. I want to be with you.” She rolled her eyes. “And the baby and Jenna and Alex. A big happy love square team…thing.”
“It won’t be easy,” he said.
“It will be easy to be with you. The rest we can figure out along the way. I mean, if you still want me? I know I haven’t answered your calls and I—”
“Clare,” he said as he leaned toward her. “Stop talking.”
He kissed her neck up to her chin and found her mouth. When he lifted her, she wrapped her legs around his waist. “Could you kiss me like this forever?” she asked.
He didn’t answer. Instead, he walked with her attached to him to the bedroom and fell to the bed on top of her. She stretched out under him and giggled.
Dylan feigned annoyance. “Why do you always laugh when I kiss you? It’s giving me a complex.”
“I don’t know,” Clare said through tears and smiles. “It just makes me happy, I guess.”
“That’s good, then,” he said. He studied the face he’d missed. He touched her hair and her nose. He counted her freckles to make sure they were all still there.
“I love you,” she whispered, just loud enough for him to hear.
His smile grew, and he touched her cheek, then took her earlobe between his fingers and pinched.
“Ow! Geez, Lusty!” she whined as she rubbed her ear. “What did you do that for?”
“I wanted to make sure you were real,” he said and tried to stifle his laugh.
“You’re supposed to pinch yourself, not someone else.”
“Why would I pinch myself? That doesn’t make sense, Nebraska. How would that tell me if you are real?”
“Oh, I’m real. I’ll show you in a bunch of ways how real I am,” she said as she rolled him over and straddled him.
He watched as she unbuttoned his tux shirt.
“Finally, I get you in the sack,” she said. “How much time do we have?”
“Hmm,” Dylan teased, playing with the bottom of her shirt. “Probably about fifty years or so.”
She unbuttoned the last button and pushed his shirt back to expose his shoulders. “I mean until your big movie thing.”
“Oh, that.” He couldn’t concentrate on the concept of time when Clare pulled her shirt over her head. He trailed his hands over her bare arms up to her shoulders and thought maybe he was dreaming the whole thing.
She smiled down at him. “Ah, screw it,” she said and leaned over him so they were chest-to-chest. She touched her nose to his. “You’re the star. They can wait.”
He rolled her to her back and propped himself on his elbows over her. He kissed her lips, then her nose, then her ear. “They can wait, but Gretchen won’t. Do you have a dress?”
“I can put something together.”
“Good. Accessories?”
Clare squinted. “My gosh, you are starting to sound like Gretchen. I must have stayed away too long.”
Dylan nodded. “Well, yeah, you did. One minute apart from you is too long. But do you?”
She nibbled at his neck and murmured, “Do I what?”
“Have accessories, Nebraska. Focus.”
Clare shook her head. “I don’t know. Why are you bothering me with this now? I’m trying to seduce you here.”
He opened the drawer in his nightstand and pulled out her ring. He wiggled it and raised his eyebrows. “Accessory.”
Clare smirked. “I guess if I need to accessorize…” She grinned and grabbed the ring.
Dylan rolled onto his back next to her as she slid it on her finger and held it up in the air, inspecting it.
“Oh, Dylan,” she said. “It’s gosh-darned amazing.”
He watched Clare, lying half-naked next to him, her pale skin shimmering in the dim light of his bedroom, wearing the ring he’d picked for her, and felt at peace. “I love you, Clare Davis. Will you marry me?”
She rolled on top of him and grabbed his face between her hands. “Yes, Dylan Barnes, I will.”
Epilogue
Three Years Later
Jenna
“Jack Alexander!” Jenna cried. “Don’t wrap your sister in aluminum foil!” Of all the things Jenna had scolded Jack for in the past two years, this took the cake. She ran to the baby, who cooed and tried to palm the metal into her teething gums.
“Cow-ee yikes it,” he said. “Yook! Smi-yos.”
“Callie doesn’t like it, sweetheart. It’s not good for her to eat aluminum foil. She’s smiling because she loves you, but we have to take care of her until her Daddy and Clare get home.”
“I want Daddy! Way is he?”
“He’s at dinner for his anniversary. You’ll see him in the morning.”
“Where’s Pops?”
She yelled for Alex. Thirty seconds later, he appeared from the bedroom. “What’s up, Stecs?”
“Jack wants you, and he’s obsessed with aluminum foil.”
Alex nodded. “Yeah, it’s his new thing. I have no idea what it’s about.” He bent to kiss Callie before he hoisted Jack onto his shoulders and bounced him around the house.
Jenna watched them weave around playpens and swings and a million toys and started to cry. “I can’t take it anymore.”
Alex put Jack down and hugged his wife. “What’s wrong?”
“We’re out of space here, Al. We have to move before the new baby.”
“You’re not due for another two months. We’ll figure it out, okay?”
“You keep saying that, but it’s getting closer and closer to my due date. Dylan and Clare don’t seem ready to go anywhere. We’re the ones who are going to have two kids and one bedroom.”
“I know. You’re right. Tomorrow I’m going to demand a sit-down.”
“Alex—”
He held out a hand, interrupting. “You’re upset, I’m upset. And as much as I love this place, it’s time.”
The next day while Jack and Callie napped, the four grown-ups sat around the table in 805 and brainstormed.
“We could go to Nebraska,” Dylan suggested.
Alex laughed. “I just got the job in Jersey. It’s not easy getting college coaching gigs.”
“I have no desire to go back to Nebraska,” Clare said. “But I have another idea.”
She disappeared and returned with her iPad. “Now, be open-minded.” She tapped the screen and flipped it to show them. “Summer Heights, New Jersey.”
Jenna groaned. “Jersey?” She hated the idea of the suburbs.
“I didn’t know you were looking at Jersey,” Dylan said.
Clare held up her hands to stop their objections. “Hear me out.”
Jenna sighed, and Alex grabbed her hand, then rested them on her belly.
“It’s a new beachfront development. We could be neighbors and build our houses from the ground up. Dylan landed the comic book franchise, so we have the money.”
“But the burbs, Clare?” Jenna said.
Dylan tapped the iPad and flipped it around again, showing Jenna the picture of the grassy yard with a swing set. “It’s not the worst idea. The kids would love this, Jen. They’d have space to grow and run.”
“We’d be by the beach,” Clare added, touching Dylan’s arm. “And we’d be close enough to Alex’s job, close to the city for yours, and Dylan, well, he’s just flying all over anyway.”
Jenna turned to Alex. “Looks like a sweet deal,” he said to her. “If you want space, this is a way to get some. I vote yes.”
When Dylan and Clare declared t
hemselves sold too, Jenna sighed. “I’ll think about it.” They only decided things unanimously, and this time, she was the holdout.
***
Twenty Years Later
Clare
Clare watched Jenna dance with Jack at his wedding and let a tear fall. Our little Jack is getting married. It seemed like just yesterday when they waited in the hospital room for him to make his appearance. Tonight, he was dressed in a tux, so handsome and grown up as he smiled at his mother, who beamed with pride.
Jenna had taught Jack how to ballroom dance for the occasion, and the two of them slid across the room with ease. Jack reminded Clare so much of California Dylan, with his flecky gold eyes and gold-streaked hair. Despite industry interest, Jack didn’t want to act. He only wanted to play ball, like his Pops. Tomorrow, Jack and his new bride, Madison, would be on a plane to Chicago, where Jack would start his minor league stint.
On the other side of the dance floor, Dylan danced with their new daughter-in-law, looking as handsome as the day she met him on the California freeway.
“The man never ages,” Alex said, appearing behind her. “Fucking Barnes.”
Clare giggled and wiped away a tear. “He found the fountain of youth. He keeps it in our garage.”
“I knew I spotted something strange in your garage. Wanna dance, Clare from Nebraska?” he whispered in her ear.
As Alex guided Clare to the middle of the dance floor, she looked around the party, seeing the people who’d filled her life for the past two decades. Cindy danced by with her husband, Nick, and winked at Clare. Across the room, Steve and Penny did shots at the open bar, reconnecting after their one-night stand twenty-three years ago, and Scott, always the bachelor, flirted with the DJ. Clare remembered the night she met him in Vegas with Dom and then the night he cried when Dom left him.
Since everyone seemed to be having a nice time, Clare turned her attention to Alex. His dark hair was peppered with gray, and wrinkles had formed around his teal eyes, but he still had that sexy, sporty, New York appeal. “Remember when we danced in the streets of Vegas?” he said as he began to sway.
“You tried to talk me into bed.”
“Me? Never,” he said as they laughed at the memory. “So much has happened since then.”
“Sometimes I can’t believe how our lives turned out,” Clare said. “Maybe I’m just sentimental with Jack getting married, but honestly? I never thought this love square thing would work.”
“No? Who’d you think would bail first?”
She squinted at Alex.
“Me?”
Clare nodded. “If I had to put money on it.”
Alex shrugged. “You’d lose. I’m solid. I can’t love my life more, even in the suburbs.”
Clare smiled. “Me neither.”
Callie interrupted them. “Mama,” she said, frantically poking Clare’s shoulder. Her purple hair and nose ring matched her purple bridesmaid’s gown. “I need money. Me and Brook are going to the bar.”
Alex let go of Clare and glared at Callie. “Brooklyn’s not twenty-one. She’s not going to any bars.”
“She has ID, Pops.”
Brook joined them on the dance floor. Even though there were hundreds of people at the wedding and the music blared, Brooklyn Popovich couldn’t have looked more bored. She had the same lanky build as Jenna and the same teal eyes as Alex. She always bothered Dylan to get her a modeling gig, but they all agreed they didn’t want their kids in the entertainment business.
Alex glared at Brook. “You have ID?”
“Daddy! Of course not.” She jabbed Callie in the side with her elbow.
“You’re at your brother’s wedding and you’re bridesmaids. Your grandparents flew in from Nebraska to see you. This is a family obligation, and you’re not going anywhere,” Clare said. “Especially not a bar.”
Clare and Alex watched the girls stomp away. Callie took Clare’s camera off the table and messed with the settings, using Brooklyn to focus. Callie had inherited her mother’s artistic gene and loved photography, but other than that, they were night and day.
Clare sighed. “What are we going to do with them?”
Alex shook his head. “Send them home with your parents until they’re thirty?”
“They’d escape within a week. My parents are too old, and Lucas has enough girls to deal with.” Clare looked across the room to Lucas, sitting with her parents. His wife, Tasha, and their four daughters had stayed in Nebraska to take care of the farm. Clare and her parents had signed the title over to Lucas as a wedding gift, and they’d switched houses. Her parents lived in the backhouse, and Lucas and his growing family lived in the main house she’d grown up in.
“The girls are so much harder to raise than Jack,” Alex said.
“Jack inherited Dylan’s laid-back nature,” Clare said.
As if she’d conjured him with the mention of his name, she felt Dylan’s arms slip around her waist. He nibbled her ear, and she sighed. After all these years, she still swooned over her husband. “Did I hear something about getting laid?”
Jenna joined them too. “Who’s getting laid?”
“Dylan,” Alex answered, reaching for Jenna’s hands.
“Oh, good for you,” Jenna said, clapping her hands toward Dylan and Clare.
“Want to join?” Alex asked.
They all groaned. “We’re a close-knit group, but not that close,” Jenna said.
“You know what I mean,” he said. “You and me, Stecs. Let’s do it.”
“Oh, Alex,” she said, rolling her eyes. “You’re such a romantic.”
The four friends smiled at each other as Jack and Madison danced by, practicing one of the dances Jenna had taught them for the occasion. Jack’s smile lit up the room as he focused on his new bride as if they were the only two people in the world.
Dylan held Clare from behind, wrapping his arms around her. She put her hand over her heart. “I hope their life together is as happy as ours,” she whispered to Dylan.
“Impossible,” he said before he planted a kiss on her neck and squeezed her tightly.
The End
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Acknowledgments
First, I’d like to thank the team at Limitless Publishing for giving The Love Square life. From day one, every single person I’ve encountered has been welcoming, professional, and accommodating, even to a paranoid, insecure newbie like myself! I can’t put into words how happy I am to be a part of your team and how much I’ve learned in the process. A special shout out to my amazing Limitless editor JoSelle Vanderhooft for her thorough and thoughtful assistance in making The Love Square shine.
Second, this book wouldn’t have been written without the support of my husband Joe and our boys, who were always ready with a smile even when I was stressed out or glued to the computer screen. Thank you for your love and encouragement.
To my dear friend Angela DiOrio, who gave me courage to write, taught me to love myself, and laughed along with me for the past five years. Thank you for sharing your positivity, love, and light.
To my sister Nicole LaRusso, who through thick and thin always finds a way to make me smile. Thank you for spending the last decade and a half with me and for always reading my sucky first drafts.
Thanks to my mother Linda Graff who instilled in me a love of reading and writing (and for all the stories she shared about managing a bookstore—she thought I wasn’t listening!); to my father Bill Graff for passing down his “crazy” gene (every author needs some crazy); and to my bro for being awesomely miserable. Love you.
To my first real fan, Trisha Madley, a wonde
rful author, avid reader, and supportive friend who encouraged me to share my stories, and to my special circle of family and friends who have been so generous in sharing their experiences, insight, and talent. You’ve helped me get to this moment where I’m writing an acknowledgment page! Thank you.
And finally, a huge thank you to my sugar-sweet Southern belle, author Melissa Chambers. She found me in an online pitch forum and with one comment, planted the seed for a friendship that blossomed into love. You are my Obi-Wan and you freaking rock! LYLAS.
Thank you for reading The Love Square. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.
About the Author
Jessica Calla is a lawyer by day, romance writer by night. Her favorite time is “bedtime,” when she’s free to open the laptop, battle with the blinking cursor, and pour out the contents of her heart. Jessica lives in central New Jersey with her husband, two sons, and her dog. Besides reading and writing, she enjoys movies, coffee, and chocolate and considers herself addicted to Diet Coke and Netflix (in a good way).
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/Jessica-Calla-Author-1658471457735204/
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www.jessicacalla.com/
Goodreads:
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/14527391.Jessica_Calla
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