Swing and a Mishap

by Tara Sivec

  My breath shudders out of me with my eyes squeezed closed behind the satin mask when I feel his warm, wet lips press against the side of my neck. My head tilts to the side, and I rest my free hand on top of his arm as it tightens around me and he kisses his way up my neck. My skin breaks out in goose bumps, and I shiver against him when he pauses with his lips hovering right by the shell of my ear.

  “Do you know why vanilla has always been my favorite taffy flavor?” Shepherd asks quietly, his warm breath skating over my ear as he nuzzles his nose against the side of my neck. “Because you always smell like vanilla. And I always imagined it’s what you taste like.”

  His lips are back on the side my neck, but this time when he kisses me there, his teeth gently nip the sensitive skin and his tongue quickly follows, my knees almost giving out when he pulls his mouth away to speak close to my ear again.

  “In case I forget to tell you at the end of the night, this was the best date I’ve ever had in my life,” Shepherd whispers.

  I have to swallow past the lump in my throat when I finally say my first words to him.

  “The date hasn’t even started yet. How do you know it will be the best?”

  Shepherd presses his lips once more to the side of my neck before pulling away.

  “I just know.”

  I can hear the smile in his voice as his arm loosens it’s hold from around me, and his body brushes against the side of my arm when I feel him walk around to stand in front of me. The palm of his hand gently glides down my arm until his fingers are sliding across my palm and he’s wrapping his hand around mine, lifting it up toward him. His kisses the top of my hand, holding his lips there for a few seconds, making my heart try to beat its way out of my chest. Pulling his mouth away, Shepherd gives my hand a reassuring squeeze as he starts tugging me forward.

  “Just walk slow; I’ve got you.”

  Tears prickle the backs of my eyes beneath the mask, the candles, the flowers, the nuzzling, and the handholding completely overwhelming my cold, dead heart, along with his words. He does have me, and I want him to know I trust him. Quickly kicking off the flip-flops Birdie bitched at me for thirty minutes about not wearing with the sexy romper she and Tess picked out for me, I let Shepherd blindly lead me forward with his big, warm hand wrapped securely around mine, knowing he’ll never let me fall. My feet sink into the soft sand as I feel him walk me a good ways out onto the beach, the sound of the crashing waves getting louder as we go, the ocean breeze ruffling my hair around my face that I didn’t put up into a ponytail or a messy bun for once.

  We suddenly come to a stop, and Shepherd turns me around in the sand until it feels like I’m facing the way we just came. He lets go of my hand, and I feel the blindfold being gently pulled off me. It takes a few seconds of rapid blinking for my eyes to adjust and for Shepherd to come into focus. My heart flutters in my chest when I get my first look at him again after we kissed and after just talking to him via text since then. His hair with the close-shaved sides and just long enough on top to grip with your hands is neatly pushed back and to the side, his jaw is smooth from a fresh shave, and both of his dimples are popping out as he smiles down at me.

  “Hi,” he whispers, his smile growing bigger as excited butterflies start flapping around in my stomach.

  “Hi, yourself,” I reply with a soft laugh. “You clean up nice.”

  That’s an understatement if I ever did hear one. I’ve seen him “cleaned up” plenty of times in photoshoots for magazines, but knowing he did it for me just makes it even sweeter. In a light-gray fitted button-down made from a soft jersey material instead of the typical polyester blend, he’s got the first two buttons undone and his sleeves cuffed and pushed up to his elbows. His hands are shoved into the front pockets of the slim black dress pants his shirt is tucked into and paired with a black belt. I try not to drool over the muscles in his forearms and how his shirt clings to his biceps, but it’s pretty much impossible at this point. He’s so beautiful it hurts, and he’s so adorable with his bare feet in the sand I wish I had my phone with me so I could take a picture of him and have it for always.

  “You take my breath away.”

  It’s a cheesy statement, but there’s nothing cheesy about the way Shepherd looks at me when he says it, his eyes trailing slowly over my body from my head to my feet, making me more than a little glad I let Birdie and Tess drag me around all day putting me through hell. We finally agreed on a plum-colored, long-sleeved, wraparound-style, super-short romper. I wanted to wear a lace bralette under it, considering the front of the romper plunges into a deep V right below my breastbone, but I was outvoted by the two annoying women in the dressing room with me. With some strategically placed double-sided tape, and the way Shepherd can’t seem to take his eyes off me, I guess their decision was a good one.

  “Thank you for the flowers. They’re beautiful,” I tell him, bringing the small bunch up to my nose and taking a huge sniff. He doesn’t need to know it’s the first time anyone has ever given me flowers and this small handful I’m clutching is the most romantic thing anyone has ever done for me before.

  “Yeah, you might want to hold off on saying that,” he starts, my eyes coming back up to meet his in confusion. “So, I just want to note before you turn around that I called my sisters and my mom for date ideas, and they had a lot of suggestions and I spent way too many hours on Pinterest. I just…. Just blame Pinterest.”

  Shepherd trails off with a sigh, and laughter bubbles out of me and my heart melts right in my chest at how nervous he sounds and looks while he shifts foot-to-foot in the sand in front of me, his eyes dropping from mine as he kicks at the sand. Slowly turning away from him, my laughter cuts off with a choked gasp, and it only takes seconds before my eyes are so filled with tears as I look around I can barely see out of them.

  “Oh my God,” I whisper, a shaking hand coming up to press against my mouth as I blink the tears away. Instead of disappearing, they just fall down my cheeks while I stare out at the beach in front of me and what Shepherd has done.

  “It’s too much, right? It’s probably too much….” he trails off nervously from right behind me.

  The excitement I had over the small handful of long-stemmed purple roses I’m still holding down by my side suddenly seems incredibly lame right at this moment.

  In the sand in the shape of a giant heart that’s easily the size of my cottage is vase, after vase, after vase overflowing with purple, long-stemmed roses. Several hundred beautiful crystal vases, and thousands upon thousands of stunning, fully bloomed, purple roses, at least a few dozen in each vase, stand tall in the sand in the moonlight. A small glass jar with a flickering candle just like the ones that led me around the side of Shepherd’s cottage are nestled in the sand next to each vase to complete the heart design.

  And inside the giant rose and candle heart sits a large cabana draped in mosquito netting that’s been pulled back and tied to the posts to look like curtains, with a chandelier hanging down from the ceiling in the center. The soft glow of lights from the fixture shines down on a table set for two that looks like it was picked right up out of a five-star restaurant on the mainland and plopped down into the sand. The table is draped with a white tablecloth and topped with more purple roses, fine china, and crystal goblets, with the glow of a few more candles sparkling off the stemware. A trail of purple rose petals leads to the romantic setting in the sand, and just when I think it couldn’t possibly get any better, I hear the soft strains of violins begin to play. Glancing back to Shepherd’s deck and where the music is coming from, I see two men dressed in tuxedos standing just inside his deck railing, playing a slow, romantic melody with the violins they have held up to their shoulders and tucked under their chins, the music mixing with the sound of the crashing waves.

  “I can’t believe you did this,” I tell him with a raspy voice filled with tears and emotion as I look back at the cabana. “I’ve never even seen purple roses before. The colors each stand for s
omething. Did you know that? Like, red is for love, and yellow is for friendship. But I don’t know what purple is for. You probably just picked purple because it’s the Hawks’ color.”

  I feel both of Shepherd’s arms encircle my waist as he steps up behind me, pulling me back into his chest as he rests his chin on top of my head.

  “Huh, never heard about the color thing,” he muses. “You’ll have to look it up later.”

  There’s something in his voice that tells me he knows exactly what the color purple means, but I let it go for now as he continues speaking, and I stare out at the breathtaking sight that he had set up just for me.

  “You deserve to have everything you’ve ever dreamed, Wren. And according to Pinterest and all the yelling my sisters and my mom did at me, this is what every woman dreams of for a first date. I probably went a little overboard with the—”

  I turn around quickly in his arms when his voice starts getting adorably fast and nervous again, his words immediately cutting off and a look of horror coming over his face when he looks at mine.

  “No, no, no, no! I’m not supposed to make you cry again!” Shepherd says in a panic, both of his hands coming up to cup my cheeks, making me laugh through my tears.

  I quickly push up on my toes and calm his panic by pressing my lips to his. I hold them there for a few seconds before pulling back to smile at him.

  “These are happy tears,” I reassure him. “I just can’t believe you did all this for me.”

  Shepherd lets out a sigh of relief, kissing my forehead before dropping his hands from my face and lacing his fingers through my hand that isn’t still holding on to the small bouquet of roses to continue walking through the sand.

  “Oh, this is just the beginning.” He smiles down at me. “I wasn’t kidding about the hours I spent on Pinterest. Do you know how hard it is to book a last-minute plane to fly by with an LED night sign with a message on it?”

  “You’re lying.” I shake my head with a laugh as we walk along the purple rose petal path in the sand to the cabana.

  “You’re right,” Shepherd says with a serious nod, dropping my hand when we get under the cabana to pull out my chair for me. As soon as I’m seated, he quickly kisses the top of my head, chuckling as he walks around the table and takes his seat across from me. “It wasn’t hard at all to book one of those things.”

  “Middle field… I still can’t believe you called it middle field, Wren.” Shepherd laughs as he shakes his head at me. “How did you even type that without making yourself vomit?”

  I laugh as I pop a white chocolate truffle into my mouth, knowing my cheeks are going to be seriously hurting tomorrow from all the laughing I’ve done tonight. It turns out Shepherd really was teasing about booking a plane to fly by with a message on it, and I’m glad for that. I think my heart would have actually melted right out of my chest if he’d done one more crazy-romantic thing for me. The flowers, the cabana, the live music while we ate, and the food were more than enough. Shepherd even hired a chef to cook for us in his kitchen, and he made us the best lobster risotto and filet mignon I’ve ever had in my life. Two servers dressed in tuxedos that matched the musicians came out to the beach to bring us our courses covered with fancy silver domes, quickly disappearing back inside Shepherd’s house to give us privacy. The conversation never stopped all through dinner, and neither did the laughter, from both of us. He told me about silly pranks he and his teammates pulled on each other over the years and bragged about his friend Nick and the beautiful family he’s created. I told him about the joys of raising a boy who maybe got too much influence from all his crazy aunts. We reminisce about high school and the conversations we had online when we first started talking again, and everything is easy and perfect and just how I imagined a date with Shepherd would be.

  Now that dinner is finished, the servers have cleared off the table, and the musicians have gone home, we’ve moved away from the cabana to another small area in the sand Shepherd had set up for us for dessert. Surrounded by another small circle of candles in the sand are piles and piles of pillows and blankets, with a large wooden tray off to the side with an assortment of chocolate truffles, a bowl of fresh strawberries, and a bucket filled with ice and a bottle of champagne that Shepherd popped as soon as we sat down. We’re both stretched out on our sides facing each other after drinking a glass, our elbows resting in the pillows with our heads resting on our hands, a warm fleece blanket draped over my legs that Shepherd put there when he saw goose bumps on them a few minutes ago.

  “Why didn’t you ever tell me about Owen’s dad?” Shepherd asks quietly, the last bit of truffle in my mouth suddenly hard to swallow.

  I knew it was only a matter of time before he’d want to move our conversation to something a little more serious, and it looks like that time has come.

  “Do you really want to ruin the best date you’ve ever had with something so messy?” I joke with a humorless laugh.

  Shepherd reaches over to grab my hand that’s currently fiddling with the edge of the blanket beneath me, lacing his fingers through mine and tugging me closer until my face is just a few inches from his.

  “I like messy,” he tells me with a small smile. “I wish you would have been messy with me the first time I asked.”

  A spark of guilt shoots through me, and I look down from his eyes to stare at our clasped hands resting on top of a small pillow, watching Shepherd’s thumb rub back and forth soothingly over top of mine.

  “I liked you,” I tell him softly, still staring at our hands. “I mean… I really liked you. And I couldn’t believe you were actually messaging me, and talking to me, and I know I should have told you the truth, but I just didn’t want the guy I had a huge crush on all my life to think I was a loser. And it’s not like I thought you would ever be into me, or ever come back here to live and find out. You had this amazing, glamorous life, hanging out with celebrities and being on television and in magazines, and I was just the idiot on the other side of the country who got drunk and made a poor decision and have let that poor decision treat me like shit for entirely too long. So I never elaborated when you asked if he was in our lives. Because he was. He is. It’s just sporadic and it sucks the life out of me every time, and I didn’t want you to know that part of me. I didn’t want you to see how weak I was or how much I let him walk all over me.”

  “Hey, look at me,” Shepherd urges softly until I finally bring my eyes up to his. “You are not weak, and you never have been. Look at you. Look at what you’ve done without any help from that piece of shit. I have never met a more amazing young man than Owen. You did that. And you run a business, and you take care of everyone else around you. You are anything but weak, Wren. You’re the strongest person I’ve ever met.”

  I told myself I wouldn’t cry anymore tonight, but clearly Shepherd didn’t get that memo. He lets go of my hand to reach up and cup my cheek, swiping away at my tears with his thumb.

  “Just remember you said that when Kevin gets to the island. I guess he’s coming for a visit. Yay,” I deadpan, and Shepherd leans forward in the pillows and blankets to give me a quick, soothing kiss, a brush of his tongue across my top lip, and a few small pecks before he pulls back.

  “I know you think he’s your problem to deal with, but not anymore. Not now and not ever again, okay? Whatever you need from me, it’s yours. If you need me to kick his ass, done. If you need me to make sure Tess has a full supply of BIC lighters and lighter fluid, done and done. And if you need me to just stand behind you, giving you support… sweetheart, you’ve had that since the day I got here.”

  “I don’t want you getting involved in this mess.” I shake my head, but Shepherd just smiles at me.

  “I told you. I like it messy,” he replies, kissing the tip of my nose and then pulling back.

  “You’ve had it pretty easy since you got here without anyone hounding you or trying to get into your personal business,” I remind him. “The island police have stopped a couple
of paparazzi and sent them back home before they even got off the ferry. Paparazzi are innocent little kittens compared to what Kevin Stratford will do if something doesn’t go his way. I don’t want you getting pulled into that when you’ve done everything you can to avoid the press since your injury and since you retired.”

  Shepherd just smiles again, scooting closer to me in the pile of pillows and blankets, his hand dropping from my cheek to slide over my hip and around my back, curling into me and tugging me up against him.

  “You let me worry about that,” he orders while I place my hand against his chest right over his heart, the steady beat against my palm immediately calming me just as much as being this close to him does. “In case you’re forgetting, I’m kind of a big deal. I can handle a little dipshit like him.”

  Shepherd winks at me, making me laugh, even though he has absolutely no idea what he’s saying. Kevin is a narcissistic asshole who cares about no one but himself, and with one call to Daddy, all his problems are magically fixed. As soon as he knows Shepherd Oliver is here, and that we’re dating and he’s in Owen’s life, Kevin is absolutely going to make a scene, and it’s not going to be pretty. He’s never wanted me or my son, but that’s not going to matter, because he’s a special kind of asshole like that.

  But Kevin isn’t here right now, and I don’t want to think about him anymore. I just want to enjoy the best first date I’ve ever had with the best man I’ve ever met. I want to enjoy the fact that I was right to trust my instincts the other night when I went to him after I read his messages. Deciding to try my hand at being bold, I tilt my head forward until my mouth is hovering right over Shepherd’s, sliding my hand up his chest and around to the back of his neck.

  “Can we be done talking about messy stuff now?” I whisper, brushing my lips back and forth against his until I hear a soft groan come out of him, making me smile against his mouth.