She’d have to wait until he got her home for that. If she could wait that long.
Six months running Mackenzie’s, and she still felt her heart melt every time she looked up from mixing a cocktail to hear him describing the plates on the menu and what drinks went best.
With the open kitchen, he got to listen to diners discuss the menu. The first night they’d opened, he’d told her about overhearing a group of friends pick what they wanted to share. One of the women had said everything looked good to her except for mushrooms with phyllo dough, and her friend turned to her in surprise.
“I didn’t know you don’t like mushrooms,” the friend said.
The woman shuddered. “I keep trying, but they always make me gag.”
“We’ve been friends for half a decade. You’ve come over for dinner countless times. How did I not know this about you?”
The woman had laughed and said, “I guess now you know something more about me!” and the conversation moved on to other things. But Connor had been so excited. Friends for five years and still learning about each other. It was minor—who cared whether someone liked mushrooms or not?
But Mack understood why it meant so much. Because wasn’t getting to know someone all about the little things? And the little things added up to bigger ones until you had a connection with someone.
Until you were sharing a friendship, a romance, a life.
Mackenzie’s had brought that out, shown someone a new perspective on a friend that woman had thought she’d known so well. She’d file the fact away and remember it another time and that, too, was what intimacy was: an exercise in paying attention.
To what was said and what wasn’t. To the whole story—not just the parts displayed in public but the pieces kept quiet, secret, and safe.
Like now, when Connor squeezed Mack’s shoulder and she tilted her head back so it nudged against him. They both knew what the gesture meant, what the blindfold reminded them of, even if they wouldn’t tell their friends exactly why Connor had it or knew how to tie it so tight. It was a reminder of the history they shared—and the history they were in the process of making.
As was the dress she was wearing, the same black dress Connor had kept hanging in his closet in Oregon and then brought with him when he returned. She wasn’t sure if he loved it on her—or loved taking it off. It reminded Mack of the pain when he left, of course, and the things they’d said. But that only made her think of how he’d come back, how he’d stayed, how she knew he’d never truly let her go.
She heard shuffling and guessed someone had gotten up to dim the lights. Abbi, who couldn’t sing for her life, started belting “Happy Birthday” as poorly as she could, until no one could sing because they were laughing so hard and Mack was begging them to finish so she didn’t have to listen anymore.
As Abbi crescendoed into the rousing finale, Connor slid off the blindfold. Mack gasped at the cake he’d made. There must have been fifty light, thin crepes layered with a spread of creamy chocolate mousse between each one, topped with a chocolate ganache and curls of what looked like candied orange peel.
Sparkling candles lit up over the cake and Mack went to blow them out, but they didn’t even sputter. Mack kept huffing and puffing until she realized Connor had gotten the trick kind and smacked him in the arm.
“I’d kill you,” she said, “but I can’t in good conscience dispose of someone who can make a cake like that.”
“And the hero gets to live another day,” Connor declared triumphantly, intercepting her with a kiss before she could swat at him again.
“It’s beautiful,” Claire gushed.
“How do we get that on the menu?” Sam immediately wanted to know.
“How many hours did that take you?” Austin asked.
“And do you two want to get a room?” Abbi said as the kiss deepened.
“Nope, we’re good,” Mack murmured, and then went back to kissing Connor. How could he always make her feel like this, like everything was right in the world? Finally, reluctantly, she pulled away just to make their friends stop hollering. Connor put out the sparklers and cut into the cake, reserving the first slice for Mack.
“Happy birthday, love,” he said as he took a seat beside her, kissing her on the cheek before she went in for a bite.
“I can’t believe you did this.” She shook her head, looking around the table. “You closed the restaurant, cleaned everything up, made this incredible meal—”
“To be fair, that part was all Connor,” Sam said.
“But you guys showed up and made it happen. Seriously, thank you. I have the best friends in the world. The best job. The best bar.” She turned to Connor. “And the best boyfriend I could have hoped for.”
“You’re worth it, Mack,” he said, taking her hand and squeezing it. She couldn’t believe how lucky she was. There weren’t words for it all, but she knew he’d be able to feel it later in the dark as they moved together in the bed that used to be hers and was now theirs, the house they were repainting and decorating together so it would belong to them both.
“We’re not done yet, either,” Connor said, and Sam brought out two boxes wrapped in tissue paper.
“Presents?” Mack asked. “You told me you weren’t doing anything special!” She’d been secretly kind of bummed when her friends downplayed the day but had said it was okay, she didn’t need much. Only it looked like Connor had arranged everything behind her back.
“I didn’t want you planning anything,” he teased her as she shook her head at the wrapped boxes stacked in front of her. “Even if you aren’t in control, things still turn out okay.”
“Better than okay,” Mack said, feeling overwhelmed with gratitude as she reached for the smaller present first.
As soon as Mack opened it, her hand flew to her mouth. If she ever needed the reminder of what she had, this was it—a framed photograph taken in front of the restaurant on the day it opened. The foreman had taken the picture of them under the Mackenzie’s sign, Mack and Connor in the middle, arms around each other and surrounded by their smiling friends.
Mack was beaming as hard as she was in the picture in front of Billy’s. Only this time she had more people around her, and the sign in the background was her own.
“I know exactly where this is going,” she said—the bookshelf with the picture from Billy’s and another one taken with her, Connor, Matthew, Kristen, and Connor’s parents in Gold Mountain earlier that year.
His dad hadn’t been thrilled when he heard about the restaurant Connor was opening. But when he actually came to visit, it only took one bite for him to change his mind.
The next present was also in a frame, but it wasn’t a photograph. It was one of the sunflowers saved from the hundreds Connor had brought the day he came back. He’d gotten it dried, pressed, and mounted, so that even though the flowers that had filled Mack’s home had eventually faded, she’d always have the reminder that no matter what changed moving forward, they had their love.
Mack clutched it to her heart as tears slid down her face. “I can’t believe you guys,” she said when she’d finished hugging everyone.
“To Mack.” Claire raised her glass of wine. “May this be the best year yet.”
“To the cutest couple ever, even if you’re disgusting and I hate you for being so happy,” Abbi said, and Mack laughed, sticking her tongue out at her friend.
“Just watch,” she said. “You’re going to be next.”
“I wish.” Abbi picked at her cake. “You try finding someone who’s hot and single and not an asshole and doesn’t have the emotional availability of a potato.”
“Come on,” Mack chided. “You never know who you might meet.”
Connor nudged Mack’s arm. “Or who you already know.”
Mack raised her glass with a smile. “To all of you,” she said.
“And to Mackenzie’s,” Sam added. “A beautiful space, a successful launch, and Food & Wine magazine’s favorite new opening of t
he year. Making all those chefs at five-star restaurants in New York and San Francisco jealous that they hadn’t thought to open up a kick-ass place in the mountains instead.”
“With a special shout out to ‘self-trained mixologist Mackenzie Ellinsworth, who is equal parts imaginative and accessible in her fine array of craft cocktails based on an assortment of house-made bitters you won’t find anywhere else,’” Connor quoted.
“Jesus, did you memorize that whole thing?” Mack asked, eyes wide.
“I should say so, after you pranced around the house reading it aloud so many times.” Connor laughed and she shoved his knee with hers.
“Don’t act like you don’t sleep with a cutout of the article about you under your pillow, hotshot,” Mack said as everyone clinked glasses.
“I’ll do a dramatic reading for you later,” he whispered in her ear.
“Naked,” she whispered back.
“With more cake.”
“I expect naked cake for breakfast,” she told him.
“And then?” he asked.
“And then naked you. All day.” She bit her lip, hoping he knew that she meant it.
“Your wish is my command.”
“You know how much I love you?” she asked him.
“Tell me again.”
Mack was leaning in to kiss his ear and whisper it again when Abbi rang the alarm that more PDA was happening.
“Later,” Mack whispered before returning her attention to their friends.
“Promise?” he asked.
“Always,” she answered, and that part wasn’t whispered. It wasn’t a secret. It didn’t need to be.
Everyone at the table already knew. Connor and Mack knew most of all. But she loved the way he still asked her to say it out loud, the way he asked her to say what she wanted, what she needed, what she desired most from him. To say it and own it. To shout it and make sure she was heard.
To say out loud and for the world that this was forever. Even when it was messy and imperfect. Maybe—especially—then.
“I can’t believe how special you make me feel,” she said later, after they’d said good night to everyone and she was carrying her presents and the rest of the cake to the car.
“Because you are special,” Connor said. “Now come on.” He put his arm around her. “Are you ready to go home?”
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Acknowledgments
Thank you so much to everyone who made it possible for Mack and Connor to tell their story, especially my agent, Andrea Somberg, and my awesome editor, Alycia Tornetta, who helped me wrangle two stubborn, impossible characters into bed together when they just kept wanting to be difficult.
I came up with the idea for Mack’s character, a bartender who takes no shit, when my husband and I ate at the bar of Portobello, a vegan restaurant in Portland, Oregon. I came up with Connor’s idea of creative small plates after we celebrated our five-year anniversary at Avant Garden, a vegan restaurant in New York City. Thanks to these restaurants for inspiring me, and to Robert for always being up for a good meal—and for spending so much time talking about imaginary people with me!
Nora Metzger read earlier drafts and kept me sane, and Alison Buchbinder gave sound advice and affirmation. Balaka Basu is truly the best critique partner I could hope for. Not only did she patiently read multiple drafts, but she dropped everything to Skype with me when I was in dire need of direction. Thanks also to Jennifer Sable for sitting in Bryant Park and talking through revisions with me while eating pastries. Writing may be a solitary act, but I’d never get anything done alone. (Or without croissants.)
Most of all, thank you to everyone for coming to Gold Mountain with me and making such a beautiful place come alive.
About the Author
Rebecca Brooks lives in New York City in an apartment filled with books. She received a PhD in English but decided it was more fun to write books than write about them. She has backpacked alone through India and Brazil, traveled by cargo boat down the Amazon River, climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro, explored ice caves in Peru, trekked to the source of the Ganges, and sunbathed in Burma, but she always likes coming home to a cold beer and her hot husband in the Bronx.
Sign up for Rebecca’s newsletter at www.rebeccabrooksromance.com/newsletter to get a free novelette and a monthly email about Rebecca’s adventures. Don’t miss Make Me Stay, Sam and Austin’s story and book one in the Men of Gold Mountain series, available now. And Make Me Want, Abbi and Tyler’s story and book three in the series, coming soon!
Rebecca’s website: www.rebeccabrooksromance.com
Twitter: www.twitter.com/BeccaBooks
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