“She’s still cute,” Aubrey grumbled.

“She’s also nice and smart, but she’s not the girl I’m head over heels in love with,” I admitted, shocking the hell out of Aubrey since I’d never said the words aloud before – at least not in English so she could understand what they meant.

“The girl you’re head over heels in love with?” Aubrey repeated back blankly.

I’d finally done what I’d been dying to do since she’d knocked on the door. I pulled Aubrey onto my lap and kissed her on the lips. “I. Love. You,” I told her, punctuating each word with another kiss because I just couldn’t resist.

“You waited until now to tell me that?” she wailed, crying and hugging me at the same time. “In the middle of our first major argument?”

“I’ve actually told you before,” I admitted. “Only I was too much of a chicken and said it in Russian.”

Aubrey pulled away from me and stared in my eyes. “You did?” she gasped. “When?”

“Friday night,” I replied.

A big grin crossed her face. “So that’s what you said right before you carried me off to your bedroom to have your wicked way with me. It sounded awfully sexy, but I had no idea.”

“You think anything I say to you in Russian sounds sexy,” I reminded her.

“And that’s one of the things I love about you,” she said softly.

“One of the things?” I teased, relieved to know that my feelings were returned.

“I’m head over heels in love with you too, Luka,” she confirmed. “I love how smart you are. And how unbelievably sexy you are. I love that you can talk to me about math in a way that I can understand what you mean. And that you’re so passionate about hockey—even if it means that you make crazy decisions because of it sometimes. I love the way you make me feel like I’m the only woman in the world and how sexy I feel when we’re together. And I love feeling like we can talk to each other about anything, which is why you have to promise me this will never happen again. No secrets about major stuff. If you want to throw me a surprise party or something like that, fine, but please don’t hide something from me if it really matters to you.”

I held Aubrey’s stare as I answered. “I promise that this will never happen again. I don’t ever want to go through another night like this again, knowing you’re out there somewhere hurting but not having any way to make it better. Which is why I need you to make a promise, too.”

“What do you need from me, Luka?” Aubrey asked.

“Couples fight. It’s part of life, so I know the time will come in the future where I am going to do something that pisses you off or scares you or freaks you out,” I said. “I need you to promise me you won’t leave. Not even for one night. That you’ll stick around and talk it out with me no matter how hard or scary it seems.”

“Yes, Luka,” she agreed. “I can promise that. I’m so sorry I ran yesterday, especially now that I know what was going on. I wasted a whole night of both of us feeling like crap when it could have been settled so quickly if I’d just confronted you right away.”

“That’s what I don’t get, Aubrey. Why did you leave? I would have expected you to come charging into the shower after me or something, but not to just walk away,” I asked.

Aubrey hugged me tight as she responded. “At first, I was just stunned. I couldn’t figure out what a girl would be doing here while you were showering, and my instinct was to run. To bury my head in the sand and not think about it at all, because if it was the end of us, I would have been devastated.”

“But then you sent me a text saying you’d come over this morning,” I reminded her.

She shrugged. “By then, I’d realized that there must me some other explanation, but I was just so angry with you by that point that I didn’t think I would listen to anything you said. But I didn’t want you to totally freak out if you couldn’t find me either. I learned how bad that could be when Drake and Lexi got into a huge fight last year and she disappeared on him for a whole weekend. I didn’t want to do the same to you so I figured a text was the safest route to go.”

“I’m really glad you sent it,” I thanked her. “It was still a long night, but the text helped me stay semi sane.”

“So we’re good?” she asked.

“We’re better than good,” I whispered. “We’re fanfuckingtastic. We survived our first major fight and admitted we’re in love with each other.”