Dating My Brother's Best Friend .

Chapter 20 : The Waterfront.

He drove us to the pier.

Not the tourist pier with the restaurants and the crowds. The quiet one further north where the city opened up to the water and you could see the whole skyline reflected in the evening light.

He parked and we got out.

"Come on," he said.

We walked down the wooden boardwalk. Monday evening. The air was cool coming off the water. A few other people scattered along the pier but mostly it was empty. Just us and the city and the particular quality of light that happens right before sunset.

He stopped at the railing overlooking the water.

I stood beside him.

"This is the surprise?" I said.

"Part of it," he said.

"What's the other part?"

He looked at me. "I wanted to bring you somewhere that wasn't the office. Wasn't your apartment. Wasn't anywhere we've already been. Somewhere that was just ours."

I looked out at the water. At the city behind us. At the sky turning colors.

"It's beautiful," I said.

"Yes," he said. But he was looking at me when he said it.

I felt something in my chest tighten.

"Roman," I said quietly.

"I've been thinking," he said. "About Friday. About what I said in the park. About all of it."

"Okay," I said carefully.

"I told you I care about you," he said. "That it's real. That I want this. All of that is true." He paused. "But there's more."

My heart was doing complicated things.

"More?" I said.

He turned to face me fully. "I don't just care about you, Lina. I—" he stopped. Took a breath. "I've been trying to find the right words for weeks. The perfect way to say it. But I don't think there is a perfect way."

"Say it anyway," I said quietly.

He looked at me in the evening light with the water behind us.

"I'm in love with you," he said.

The world got very quiet.

"I'm in love with you," he said again. "I have been for weeks. Maybe longer. I don't know when it happened. It wasn't one moment. It was all of them. The coffee. The meetings. The way you draw in the margins. The way you argued with me about colour theory. The way you sat on your kitchen floor and looked at me like I was worth understanding."

He was still looking at me.

"I didn't plan this," he said. "I didn't want to fall in love with my best friend's sister. With an intern at my company. With someone I was supposed to be keeping at professional distance. But I did. And I can't pretend I didn't anymore."

I could not breathe properly.

"So that's the other part of the surprise," he said quietly. "I brought you here to tell you that I'm in love with you. And I don't know what you want to do with that information but I needed you to know."

The pier was very quiet around us.

I looked at him standing at the railing telling me he loved me in the most Roman way possible — honest and careful and terrified and brave all at once.

"Roman," I said.

"Yes?"

"Can I tell you something?" I said.

"Always," he said.

I took a breath. "I wrote something in my sketchbook on Saturday. After Zara left. After she told me something I had been avoiding admitting to myself."

He was very still. "What did you write?"

"Three words," I said. "Three times. Like writing it three times made it official."

"What three words?" he said quietly.

I looked at him in the evening light.

"I love him," I said. "That's what I wrote. I love him. Three times."

He stared at me. "Lina—"

"I'm in love with you," I said. "I have been for weeks. I didn't know how to tell you. I was waiting for the right moment. For you to be ready. For me to be brave enough. But here's the truth — I'm in love with you and I have been since probably the almond croissant and definitely since you remembered my Thai food order and absolutely since the moment you looked at my apartment like it explained something."

I stepped closer to him.

"So you bringing me here to tell me you love me," I said. "That's — that's everything. That's exactly what I needed to hear. Because I love you too."

Roman looked at me like I had just said something that rearranged his entire world.

"Say it again," he said.

"I love you," I said.

"Again," he said.

"I love you," I said. "Roman Vale. I am completely, terrifyingly in love with you."

He closed the distance between us in two steps.

"I'm going to kiss you now," he said quietly.

"Okay," I said.

"Here," he said. "On this pier. With people around. With the whole city behind us."

"I don't care," I said.

"Neither do I," he said.

Then he kissed me.

His hand came up to cup my face. My hands found his shoulders. And we stood on the pier in the evening light and kissed like we had been waiting eight weeks to do exactly this.

It was not tentative. It was not careful. It was the kind of kiss that two people have when they have spent eight weeks building towards something and finally letting it happen.

When we broke apart we were both breathing differently.

"That was—" I stopped.

"Yes," he said. "It was."

We stood very close. His hand was still on my face. My hands were still on his shoulders.

"We just kissed on a public pier," I said.

"Yes we did," he said.

"People saw," I said.

"I don't care," he said. "Let them see. Let everyone see. I love you and I don't care who knows it."

I looked at him. At this man who had spent eight weeks being careful and controlled and now was standing on a pier saying he did not care who saw.

"Roman Vale," I said. "Who are you?"

"I'm the person who is in love with you," he said simply. "That's who I am now."

He kissed me again. Softer this time. Slower.

When we broke apart the sun was setting behind us and the city lights were starting to come on.

"We should go," he said. But he did not move.

"We should," I said. But I did not move either.

We stood at the railing holding each other and watching the city light up.

"Lina," he said quietly.

"Yes?"

"Thank you," he said.

"For what?"

"For saying it back," he said. "For loving me. For letting me love you."

"You don't have to thank me for that," I said.

"I'm thanking you anyway," he said.

He drove me home slowly. Like neither of us wanted the evening to end yet.

In the car we did not talk much. We just existed in the comfortable silence of two people who had just said everything that needed saying and did not need to fill the space with more words.

When we pulled up outside my building he turned off the engine.

"Can I walk you up?" he said.

"Yes," I said.

We went upstairs to my apartment.

Inside, I turned on the string lights. Roman stood in the middle of my small living room and looked around like he was seeing it differently now.

"What?" I said.

"Nothing," he said. "Just — the first time I was here I was trying to understand you. Now I'm here and I understand you and I love you and that's—" he paused. "That's different."

I walked to him. "Good different?"

"The best different," he said.

He pulled me close. We stood in my living room under the string lights and held each other and I felt something settle in my chest that had been unsettled for eight weeks.

"I should go," he said eventually. But he did not let go.

"You should," I said. But I did not step back.

"Lina," he said.

"Yes?"

"I meant what I said on the pier," he said. "All of it."

"I know," I said. "I meant it too."

He kissed my forehead. Then he stepped back.

"Goodnight," he said.

"Goodnight," I said.

At the door he turned back.

"See you tomorrow," he said.

"See you tomorrow," I said.

He left.

I closed the door and leaned against it and felt the smile that had been building all evening finally break across my face.

Then I picked up my phone.

Me: I told him.

Zara: AND?????

Me: He told me first. He loves me.

Zara: LINA

Me: I know.

Zara: You love him, he loves you, you're both in love and you told each other?

Me: Yes.

Zara: I am SCREAMING. Internally. Out loud. In every direction. This is EVERYTHING.

Me: It is everything.

Zara: I'm so happy for you I could cry.

Me: Please don't cry.

Zara: Too late. Already crying. Happy crying. The good kind.

Me: Thank you. For pushing me. For knowing before I did. For everything.

Zara: That's what best friends do. Now go be in love and stop texting me.

I put my phone down.

I went to my kitchen floor and sat with my back against the cupboard and opened my sketchbook.

I turned to the page where I had written I love him three times.

And underneath those three lines I wrote:

He loves me too.

Then I drew the pier. The railing. The sunset. The exact moment he said the words.

And at the bottom I wrote:

Week nine. Everything changed. Everything is real. This is love.

The next morning I arrived at my desk at 8:50.

Coffee was there. And a note.

I unfolded it.

Good morning. I love you. - R

I looked at his office.

He was at his desk, watching me through the glass wall, smiling.

I picked up my phone.

Me: I love you too.

Roman: I know.

Me: How do we do this now? At work?

Roman: Carefully. Professionally. The way we've been doing it. Except now we both know what it actually is.

Me: And after work?

Roman: After work I take you to dinner. Or to piers. Or to your apartment. Or anywhere you want to go.

Me: Okay.

Roman: Okay?

Me: Yes. Okay. I'm saying yes to all of it.

Roman: Good. Because I'm planning to ask for a lot.

Me: I'm planning to say yes to all of it.

Roman: Lina.

Me: Yes?

Roman: I'm very in love with you.

Me: I'm very in love with you too.

Roman: Good. Now get to work. You have a presentation at eleven.

Me: Yes, boss.

Roman: Don't call me that.

Me: Why not? You are my boss.

Roman: When you call me that I think about things I shouldn't be thinking about at 9am on a Tuesday.

I looked at his office. He was still watching me with an expression that made me understand exactly what he meant.

Me: Noted. I'll save it for after work.

Roman: You're trouble.

Me: You love me anyway.

Roman: Yes I do.

I put my phone down and opened my laptop and tried to look like someone who was working and not someone who was in love with her boss and had just been told he loved her back.

Claire leaned over from her desk. "You're smiling," she said.

"Am I?" I said.

"Yes," she said. "You've been smiling at your screen for three minutes."

"It's a good morning," I said.

"It must be," she said. Then, quieter: "He's smiling too. I've never seen Roman smile at 9:am on a Tuesday."

I looked at his office. She was right. He was smiling while working. Just slightly. The kind of smile that people do when they are thinking about something that makes them happy.

"Yeah," I said. "It's a very good morning."