by Julie Cannon
Kelly had to catch her breath. She was good at sidestepping falling objects on a job site, but falling in love with Matt was not one she could have avoided.
“Good,” Kelly said when Matt didn’t add anything to her list. “Now, to make the playing field even, I’ve worked my ass off to have a very successful business that I’m not interested in leaving. That’s not to say I couldn’t open a satellite office in Phoenix. I understand the market is booming. However, I love what I do and am a workaholic if I’m not careful. I don’t have many friends because most of them were Suzanne’s. I sleep on the left side of the bed, need at least two cups of coffee to function in the morning, so I’m not a fan of morning sex, at least until I met you, and I take really long, really hot showers. I like porn, country music, and stupid disaster movies, and my dog eats out of the cat box if I forget to put the lid back on.”
Kelly took another deep breath before the final plunge. “My parents would be heartbroken if I were to move, but they love me and will get over it as long as I go back twice a year to visit. They’ve always wanted a grandson, and they’ll love yours as if he were mine. I don’t know how to be a stepmom, but I’m willing to do anything and everything necessary to make sure Jordan knows I love him,” Kelly stepped closer and took Matt’s face in her hands. She didn’t care that they were standing in front of the White House and that anyone could see them. She didn’t care that she might go home alone and heartbroken or that she might never love again. Matt was worth everything that stood in her way.
“That he knows I love him,” she repeated. She bent her head, and just before their lips met, she whispered, “as much as I love his mother.” Then she kissed her.
✥ ✥ ✥
Matt tried to corral her racing thoughts, but the excitement of Kelly’s lips on hers was too overpowering. It had been too long since she’d felt the softness of her body melt into hers, inhale her scent that tormented her during the long nights she lay alone in her bed.
Had she heard her correctly? Somewhere between Kelly saying she wanted more than casual, no-strings vacation sex and that she loved her, Matt had lost her mind.
Kelly’s kisses were soft and promising, teasing and demanding. They touched her soul and filled her with confidence and conviction that she was the one she wanted to spend the rest of her life with.
“I don’t know how we’ll…”
Kelly kissed her again, this time long and hard, erasing everything Matt was planning to say. When she finally lifted her head, they were both breathing heavily.
“I don’t either,” Kelly said, her eyes filled with love. “But if we want it bad enough, we’ll make it work. I want to do homework, sit on hard bleachers with the other parents, and bring soccer-game snacks. I want to build sandcastles in the sand with you and climb mountains and sail into the sunset with you and Jordan by my side. And I want you. Every day in my life and every night in our bed.”
“Is that a proposal?” Matt managed to ask, her heart racing so fast she was dizzy.
“Yes.”
“Yes.”
“Yes what?”
“Yes, I want you here. In my life,” Matt said.
Kelly had given her so much without her even knowing it. She’d given Matt her last first date, last first fight, and most important, her last first kiss, and Matt was never so happy to never be doing any of those ever again.
Chapter Thirty-four
Eight years later
“Are you bawling like a baby?” Becca’s voice was crystal clear as it came through their car speakers.
“No. I’m crying like any mother who just left her child at West Point.” She and Kelly had just dropped Jordan off on the meticulously manicured grounds of the nation’s premier military academy. He would spend the next forty-seven months of his life behind these walls learning how to be a soldier. Not just any soldier, an army officer, just like his mother. Matt knew this was the last she’d see of the young man who had dreamed of this day as far back as she could remember.
As he’d grown older, Jordan had developed more and more of Andrea’s mannerisms, and his smile was mirrored in every picture of his mother. Time had softened what once was debilitating pain. He still had everything in his room in its exact place, insisted on getting his hair cut every five weeks whether or not it needed it, ironed his clothes with military creases, and had been number one in his ROTC class in high school. He’d never cared what his peers thought of him. Watching him march around the parade grounds in his sparkling new plebe uniform, spit-shined shoes, hat pulled low shading his eyes, she knew he would be his own man as well.
She’d managed to hold back the tears she knew would embarrass Jordan until they got in the car. He’d insisted on no public displays of affection, so she had hugged him and smothered him with kisses before they left the hotel this morning. She’d prepared herself as best any mother could, but the reality was far more painful than she’d imagined.
“Come over and we’ll get drunk,” Becca said.
Matt turned her head to check Kelly’s reaction. Even after eight years, just looking at Kelly made her heart skip and her body warm all over. She was her rock, her inspiration, her tower of strength, and today was no different. Kelly smiled and nodded.
“We’d love to, and considering you’re picking us up at the airport makes it even more perfect.”
“Then we’ll definitely get drunk.”
“No, we won’t. We need to get home to Sara and relieve my parents from babysitting duty. She’s probably exhausted them.” Matt’s parents often babysat their eight-year-old daughter she and Kelly had adopted out of the foster-care system when she was three. Her parents had gladly volunteered while Matt and Kelly accompanied Jordan to New York.
Matt thought about another time when she’d left her son to experience his dream. A lot had happened over that summer. Kelly had come into her life, Becca got engaged, and Sandra fell hard for a woman who wasn’t a size eight, didn’t get her hair and nails done at a salon, and drove a fifteen-year-old car. Ashley was short, on the frumpy side, and Sandra was completely devoted to her. The feeling was mutual, and next weekend they would be celebrating their seventh wedding anniversary.
“Your parents are fine,” Becca said. “Kevin and I stopped by your house last night. Sara was in the tub, and your father was taking a pan of brownies out of the oven.” Kevin had in fact asked Becca to marry him shortly after they all returned from their vacation.
“My dad was making brownies?” Matt asked incredulously.
“I don’t think he was making them. I think he was simply taking them out of the oven. Anyway, they’re fine, and one drink will do you both good.”
“And we want to hear all about the big, bad military establishment that’s going to brainwash my godchild,” Sandra shouted in the background.
Matt had to laugh because, as much as Sandra hated all things governmental, she had pulled in all her contacts to write letters of recommendations for Jordan. As the son of a Medal of Honor recipient, he was entitled to a spot at any of the military academies but was still required to provide five letters attesting to his demonstration of the seven army values: loyalty, duty, respect, selfless service, honor, integrity, and personal courage.
Later that night, after her parents had gone home and Sara was tucked away in her bed, Matt and Kelly finally had a minute to themselves.
“It’s going to be kind of quiet around here,” Kelly said, her fingers lightly tracing the outline of the tattoo of a bicycle with waves crashing in the distance. Matt had gotten the tattoo eight years ago, after returning from her trip to the Turks and Caicos. Kelly had discovered it the first night they were together in DC, and her heart had burst with love.
Jordan had been an active high-schooler with a lot of friends who were always coming and going. Like her big brother, whom she idolized, when Sara had started school, the neighborhood kids also congregated at the Parker-Newsome house. Matt and Kelly preferred it that way. They could keep
a close eye on Sara and her friends. They’d seen too many instances where unattended children and an unmonitored internet resulted in an explosive combination. Jordan’s laughter, once filling the house, would exist only in their memories. He would come back to the big house Kelly had built for them, and it would always be his home.
“Actually, I think it’s going to be another wonderful summer.”
THE END
About the Author
Julie Cannon divides her time by being a corporate suit, wife, mom, sister, friend, and writer. Julie and her wife have lived in at least half a dozen states, traveled around the world, and have an unending supply of dedicated friends. And of course, the most important people in their lives are their three kids: #1, Dude, and the Diving Miss Em.
With the release of The Last First Kiss, Julie will have twenty books published by Bold Strokes Books. Her first novel, Come and Get Me, was a finalist for the Golden Crown Literary Society Best Lesbian Romance and Début Author awards. Several of her books have additionally been finalists for the GCLS Best Lesbian Romance, and I Remember won the GCLS Best Lesbian Romance in 2014. Rescue Me and Wishing on a Dream were finalists for Best Lesbian Romance from the prestigious Lambda Literary Society.
www.JulieCannon.com
Books Available from Bold Strokes Books
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