Dream Maker

by Kristen Ashley

It worked great because Mag was a master at breakfast, and he loved my cooking (we could just say I’d wowed him with far more than my burgers—he’d lost his mind, in a Mag way, when he’d had my spicy noodles).

  Still, it had been fun to fight about it.

  “What’d you want to be when you grew up?”

  Mag’s question cut into my thoughts and I stopped watching him wield the pancake flipper (okay, I had to admit, I was part watching his long-fingered, veined hand wield the flipper and part staring at his ass in his shorts). I looked up to his face to see he was twisted at the waist, and his eyes were on me.

  “Janet Guthrie,” I answered.

  His head jerked with surprise. “You wanted to be a race car driver?”

  I shook my head.

  “She was an aerospace engineer first,” I told him. “For her early cars, she built her own engines.”

  He turned fully to me, openly impressed. “Serious?”

  “Yup. She was, like, the whole package. The real deal.”

  “Shit,” he muttered, going back to the pancakes. “I didn’t know that.”

  I reached out, grabbed my phone, poked at it, found what I wanted, and then quoted, “‘You can go back to antiquity to find women doing extraordinary things, but their history is forgotten. Or denied to have ever existed. So women keep reinventing the wheel. Women have always done these things, and they always will.’”

  Mag slid a filled plate in front of me and shoved the butter my way, asking, “What’s that?”

  “It’s a quote from her. Even though the feminist movement was gaining steam back in those days, she wasn’t a feminist. Not at first. She just wanted to race cars. She just wanted to go fast. To compete. Her story is actually tragic. She was incredibly bright, and incredibly talented. But no one would sponsor her. You need money to race and she couldn’t get anyone to back her. She had the chops. But she also had a vagina.”

  I did some more poking on my phone and then turned it his way, doing so reaching around it with my finger so I could scroll up, and more, and then some more.

  “That’s Danica Patrick’s entry in Wikipedia.” I turned my phone back to me, returned to Guthrie’s entry, showed it to Mag and did some more scrolling, just not much of it. “That’s Janet’s.” I put my phone down. “They both had talent. But that’s the difference of thirty years and looking like a model.” I finished on a mumble, “Though Janet was no slouch, she was really cute. Still is.”

  Mag shot me a crooked grin. “I didn’t know you were a race fan.”

  “I’m not. I’m a Janet Guthrie fan.”

  “Then get on it.”

  I blinked because his tone had shifted to heavy with meaning, and it did this even though his words didn’t make sense.

  “I’m sorry?”

  He turned around, grabbed his own plate, came back to the island and set it in front of him, standing opposite me.

  But he didn’t reach for the butter.

  He shared, “I’ve been thinking.”

  “Okay,” I said slowly.

  “And I have a plan,” he declared.

  And it was a declaration.

  A serious one.

  Seeing as that was so, it was hesitantly when I asked, “What…plan?”

  “We’re good together.”

  “We…are,” I continued talking hesitantly.

  He nodded his head once, briefly, and spoke on.

  “I suppose you can make the salespeople at Urban Outfitters super fuckin’ happy and drop a load fixing up your place. Or you could move in here and use that money you got from the girls to get back to school.”

  I stared at him.

  He wasn’t quite done.

  “Bonus, your overhead will be lower since we’ll be sharing expenses. That means you can quit Smithie’s, take on more hours at Computer Raiders, and the rest of the time, focus on your future.”

  “Are you asking me to move in with you after we’ve been seeing each other for less than a month?” I queried.

  He looked side to side, then pointedly down at me in my jammies sitting at his island, where my butt had been every day practically since we met, but definitely since we fell into our Food Regime.

  What could I say?

  I liked to watch his ass in his shorts while he was at the stove and this was the best vantage point.

  “Okay, Danny, I catch your point but there are extenuating circumstances to why I’m staying with you,” I pointed out.

  “Do we fight?”

  “No…”

  “Gert likes me.”

  I pressed my lips together because I didn’t think it was appropriate that I wanted to bust with laughter, whether it be joyous or hysterical, I didn’t know.

  His stare grew intense. “Do you got some issue with me?”

  “Of course not, you’re…you’re…” I was at a loss for words, so I simply tossed my hand his way and finished, “You.”

  “That’s hardly a ringing endorsement, Evan,” he returned.

  Seriously?

  “Well, you know,” I continued, feeling awkward, because I wanted what he wanted, like a lot, for many reasons. And the scary part of that was that going back to school was not the top slot like it always used to be when I considered my life priorities (Mag was). But even so, this was too fast even if it was great, and I didn’t want anything to mess it up. “I do have issue with you putting fresh, hot blueberry pancakes à la Danny ‘Mag’ Magnusson in front of me then instigating a deep conversation before I even got them buttered.”

  “Evie,” he said low. “Not sure you caught this, honey, but I’m bein’ very serious here. And bein’ serious, I’ll remind you that you woke me up, so I assume you were conscious and reasoning when I was moving inside you earlier.”

  One could debate the “reasoning” part, considering, even when he was being gentle and taking it slow, having sex with him was mind scrambling.

  But I was definitely conscious.

  Though I could make an argument all of that was a dream.

  Which, of course, was actually a point for his side of our current discussion.

  “Danny,” I whispered.

  “A woman you admire couldn’t get through the roadblocks of her time. But you can. You’ve been held back long enough. Don’t slip into a position where you hold yourself back out of habit.”

  I studied his face, took a beat and then said calmly, “I love that you want to take care of me, but—”

  That was as far as I got before he interrupted me.

  “Yeah, I do. But that isn’t what this is about. For me, you’re super fuckin’ cute, you’re a fantastic cook, you’re a great lay, you listen, you’re thoughtful, you’re nice to people, you’re interesting, you’re funny and you’re a massive dork. In other words, I like having you around. I like it in a way, I’ve made it no mystery, I think we got a future. For you, I hope you get some of that back. Though I’m no dork.”

  He had that right.

  “So it’s soon,” he went on. “You’re right. But I know a lot of folks who jumped in fast because they knew there was something there and every single one of them are married and got kids.”

  He was talking about the Rock Chicks.

  Not to mention Lottie and Mo who got super, double extra serious after just a few days.

  Though I suspected Mag had an ulterior motive.

  “And you don’t want me dancing anymore,” I stated carefully.

  “And you don’t like to dance,” he retorted.

  I could not argue that.

  But I could still argue.

  “Danny, I mean no offense, really, you make me happy, the happiest I’ve ever been. I love what we’re building. But for a step like that, this is way too soon.”

  He stared into my eyes.

  Then he looked down at his plate, muttering, “Right.”

  “I don’t want to hurt your feelings,” I told him earnestly.

  He again looked at me and I held my breath when he
did.

  “Just to confirm, you were conscious and reasoning when I was moving inside you earlier, yeah?” he asked.

  God, it so totally felt as profound to him as it had to me.

  And I loved that.

  “Yes,” I answered.

  “You ever have that before?” he pressed.

  No.

  Profound and consuming sex that came naturally and felt beautiful?

  Not even close.

  I shook my head.

  “Babe,” he leaned into a hand on the counter toward me, “it’s you.”

  “What’s me?” I whispered.

  “For me.”

  I felt my lips part.

  Oh…my…God.

  “And this isn’t about your burgers, or your steaks. I knew from then,” he kept at me, “but every day since then, you made me know it even better.”

  Suddenly, my breath wasn’t coming easily.

  Danny wasn’t quite finished.

  “So, the way I see it, you can drop a bundle on furniture and other shit to set up your pad only for us to keep goin’ how we’re goin’ and we’re gonna end up trying to decide whose furniture to keep and what’s gotta go, or you can invest in you.” He reached for the butter and slid it his way. “Your call.”

  I watched him slice off a pat and begin to butter his pancakes agitatedly before I asked, “Were you thinking about all of this when you were looking at Zillow listings?”

  His eyes came right to mine, and his tone was as flat as his pancakes. “No, I was thinking about all of this, primarily how much I like being with you, while I was moving inside you this morning.”

  “Okeydoke,” I whispered.

  He went back to buttering.

  “Any word on the bad guy?” I asked.

  “Cisco is in the wind,” he grunted, finishing with the butter and sliding it back to me. “Got no clue, but I suppose that happens when you’re an asshole and a dumbfuck, you kill a cop with a gun that’s registered to you and aren’t smart enough to wipe the weapon and dispose of it. But what do I know? I just know, now that half of Denver is asking around about that gun, he’s vapor.”

  I didn’t butter my pancakes because I was watching Mag slather his with syrup and do it irritably.

  And generously.

  He had a heavy hand with syrup, but not that heavy.

  I’d hurt his feelings.

  It was me…

  For him.

  And alternately, it was him…

  For me.

  And he was right now a guy who’d made love to his girlfriend, then made her pancakes, then opened a locked gate beyond which was the path to her dreams and asked her to move in with him, even if she was already doing that and it wasn’t just copacetic.

  It was awesome.

  It was awesome to go grocery shopping with him and tease him that he bought more Cinnamon Toast Crunch and marshmallows and hinted broadly, “Just to have on hand, you know, in case you wanna spoil your boyfriend.”

  It was awesome to come home at night after dancing at Smithie’s and have him waiting up for me on the couch. It was awesome to then get a cuddle and rundown of where we were both at with our days and in our heads. And it was awesome to go to bed beside him.

  It was also awesome he drove all the way to Culver’s from work because I had an assignment close to there around lunchtime, and he wanted me to eat the custard when it wasn’t melted.

  More awesome was when he texted to tell me Iron Giant was playing at the Mayan in a retrospective, that was his favorite animated movie, and he wanted to make plans to go even if I’d seen it, but definitely if I hadn’t.

  But I’d seen it, and it was my favorite animated movie too.

  And that in itself was awesome, that we both loved the Iron Giant, because he was bar none the sweetest weapon of mass destruction ever.

  It was just awesome.

  All of it.

  All that came with being with Mag.

  “So, I’m still in danger,” I noted.

  “Days pass and nothin’ goes down, I got my doubts.” He forked into his pancakes, but before lifting them up to his mouth, he looked at me and finished, “I still want you covered for a while.”

  I still want you covered for a while.

  That was Mag too.

  He had me covered.

  “You’re just life,” I blurted as he shoved the big bite into his mouth.

  “What?” he asked after a couple of chews.

  “I…I just…” I shook my head and looked down at my own fluffy purple-speckled cakes.

  Breakfast he’d made me.

  God.

  God.

  I’d missed it.

  I’d been sleeping beside it for weeks, waking up next to it, living with it.

  And I’d missed it.

  “Evie,” he called. “What?”

  Okay.

  All right.

  I’d just shot him down when he’d asked me to start our future together, and although he was not in a happy-go-lucky mood, he wasn’t throwing a fit, shouting, growing sullen or acting like an ass because he’d gotten his pride stung or didn’t get his way.

  Oh God.

  Yes.

  It was him…

  For me.

  “Evie,” his voice was more demanding, “what?”

  I lifted my gaze to him, and he slow-blinked when he caught my eyes.

  I couldn’t imagine what my face looked like after taking a second to actually have a thought about how awesome my boyfriend was, that thought being a world-rocking epiphany.

  But from his reaction, I wasn’t hiding I’d had a world-rocking epiphany.

  “You’re just life,” I repeated. “I just go on. That’s what I do. Day to day. I know as a kid there’s something missing at home. I power through. I start school and nobody likes me, I can’t seem to make friends, I just power through that too. I grow up and know I’m different, I might be able to make something of myself, but my family weighs me down, and I just power through. My brother asks me for a favor that puts me in danger, and I know it’s gonna put me in danger, and yeah. Again. I just power through. I just power through, Danny. That’s me. That’s what I do. So, I missed it. I missed you walking into my apartment. I missed the miracle. You were just life.”

  His body went absolutely still.

  Except his lips.

  “The miracle?” he whispered.

  Yes.

  The miracle.

  That hair.

  Those eyes.

  His chest.

  These pancakes.

  That man.

  “Tex told me he was proud of me and Rob told me he loved me,” I explained. “Boone confided in me. He trusted me with some deep stuff, and I know you know what an honor that is. The girls got mad at me because I didn’t call on them when I was in a jam. You walked through the door of my apartment, Danny, and I was so busy powering through, I missed the rainbows and sparkles that waved in your wake.”

  “I’d prefer lightning bolts and power surges, baby,” he said quietly. “I’m not a rainbow and sparkles kind of guy.”

  “Okay, lightning bolts and power surges, but if, down the road, we have a girl, you better get onboard with rainbows and sparkles.”

  Once these words were out of my mouth, I was hit with a lightning-bolt-induced power surge and it was coming from Mag’s electric-blue eyes.

  The charge crackled between us for so long, it was likely our pancakes were incinerated, but I could not stop looking into those amazing blue eyes.

  Before the entire building went up in flames, fortunately, Mag spoke.

  “So, you movin’ in, Evie?”

  “Yeah, Danny.”

  Without delay, he left his pancakes, and as he rounded the island, I twisted his way on my stool.

  He took my face in his hands and I caught his tee in my fists at his waist.

  And then he bent to me.

  But he didn’t kiss me.

  He asked a question.


  “What’s Boone confiding in you?”

  “Uh…” I mumbled. I was still unsure, even if the boys talked, that was something they talked about.

  “Now I’m understanding Mo’s pain when we all claimed Lottie as her brother husbands,” he muttered.

  A startled laugh bubbled out of me. “Her what?”

  “Without the benefits, of course,” he assured.

  I smiled at him. “Of course.”

  “So cinnamon clusters for my foreseeable future,” he remarked.

  “Yeah, for your foreseeable future,” I teased.

  I watched his eyes smile.

  I enjoyed watching that.

  And then I got serious.

  “I’m a little scared, Danny,” I admitted.

  “I am too,” he surprised me by saying. “But you’re worth the risk.”

  Suddenly, I was a lot less scared.

  “Evie?”

  “Right here,” I stated the obvious.

  “You’re the shit.”

  Oh God.

  Why did that make me want to cry?

  I knew why.

  Because I was.

  I’d been led to believe differently.

  And I’d swallowed that as a matter of course.

  But I was the shit.

  And not because some hot guy wanted me to move in with him.

  Because I just was.

  And having that thought in my head was a miracle too.

  On this latest revelation, my voice was husky when I replied, “You too.”

  He touched his nose to mine, which was mega sweet.

  And after he did that was when he kissed me.

  When he got done (and I was pretty glad he took his time), he also tossed my pancakes in the trash, saying his woman wasn’t going to eat cold ones, so he was making a new batch.

  I had an issue with this considering the waste of perfectly good food and the state of hunger in the world.

  But I didn’t say a word.

  Chapter Twenty

  Sex Shoes

  Evie

  You have to get those.”

  “You totally have to get those.”

  “Seriously, you sooooo have to get those, you need to get them in every color.”

  I was standing in the shoe department of Nordstrom wearing a pair of sexy red sandals, staring down at my feet and experiencing some pretty extreme Shoe Peer Pressure.