Looking For Love (Semper Fi, The Forever Faithful Series Book 2)

by Stella Starling

  Micah’s heart was pounding, and he turned back to the picture, skimming his fingers over the words Zach had had embossed on it in braille. It was a love note. It was so sweet it made him want to cry. It was about them, and moments they’d shared, and all the secret things that Zach had ever whispered to him, things Micah had kept tucked away in his heart like a gift.

  And at the end…

  “What is it, musje?”

  Micah blinked his eyes fast to try to stop the tears that were threatening to blur his already imperfect vision, running his fingers over the last bit again, just to be sure.

  “Zach wants to marry me, Mam.”

  Sam laughed. “Dude, we can tell.”

  Micah turned back around, and then he really did cry. Zach was down on one knee, and he had a little box open with something glittery in it that Micah knew had to be a ring, even if he couldn’t really see it clearly. That was okay, though. He didn’t need his eyes to know that it was shiny and wonderful and perfect… just like the feeling that was growing inside him. The one that had always been there, ever since the first time he’d seen Zach, but that was suddenly bigger. Swelling and filling him up and making everything brighter in a big whoosh of happiness that felt like all the colors, all at once.

  Zach had turned his heart into a kaleidoscope of love.

  Zach reached for his hand. “Micah, will you—”

  “Yes,” Micah said, launching himself at Zach and almost toppling them both over. “Oh my God. I do get to say yes now, right? Because I’ve been waiting forever to say that to you. I mean, not that I was impatient or anything, because any time is really good, but right now? Right now is a really good time. It’s the best time. And totally yes. Yes. Yes, I will marry you, Zach Hunter. When should we do it? Soon? Tomorrow? We could do it jumping out of the plane. That’s a thing, right?”

  “Dios Mio. Please say it is not a thing,” Ana said, crossing herself.

  Rachel-Lyn grinned. “We’re going to need time to plan the ceremony, musje.”

  “Vegas,” Sam muttered, coughing into his hand.

  Micah grinned. He didn’t care. He just wanted Zach.

  Zach kissed him, laughing, and somehow managed to swing Micah back up to his feet without either of them falling over. He kept hold of one hand, though, and slipped the ring onto it.

  It was perfect.

  “I’ll marry you whenever you’ll have me, Micah Finn Rawlings,” he said, pressing a kiss against Micah’s palm and then holding Micah’s hand against his smiling face. “Your love is what my heart’s always been looking for, and I promise you, it’s a gift I’ll never take for granted. You see the good in the world, always, and I want to live in that world with you—your world—for the rest of my days. I want every part of my life colored with your love, baby. It already is. Every one of my days is better with you in it, and every moment of those days is more beautiful when I get to see it through your eyes, too.”

  “You love me,” Micah said, his bubbling delight spilling over as he felt the truth of it through his fingers, heard it in the resonating tone of Zach’s voice, recognized it with the deepest parts of himself. “You really, really love me, Zach.”

  “I really, really do, Micah,” Zach said, going into full-dimple mode. “And I always will.”

  Micah grinned, his heart feeling as light as the sun. “I always will, too.”

  “Always?” Zach teased, arching a brow.

  “Definitely.” Micah grinned. “Forever. But I don’t really know if this counts as a gift? I mean, you said it was a gift to you when I unwrapped it, but I mean, it’s really for me, right? Because I totally want to marry you. I want all those things you said, and I want them for the rest of my life. You’re… Zach, you’re everything.”

  “Those are the best kinds of gifts, mijo,” Ana said, sighing happily as she put her hand over her heart. “The ones which become bigger in the giving. This is love.”

  “This is going to give me diabetes,” Sam said, rolling his eyes.

  “This is going to give me a new son,” Tanja said, dabbing at her eyes. “And one I am so happy to welcome to our family.”

  “It’s going to make me cry,” Rachel-Lyn said, leaning against her husband.

  “It already is, Rach.”

  “Shut up, you’re crying, too.”

  “Of course I am,” Amanda said, coming over and wrapping her arms around both Micah and Zach at once. “Micah, you always said you were blessed, and now I think I believe you. This love you’ve found is as beautiful as your heart, musje. I’m so happy for you. For both of you.”

  “I’m the one who’s blessed,” Zach said, pressing a kiss against Micah’s temple.

  Actually, Micah was pretty sure that was him. But the best part? That blessing was big enough for the both of them. For all of them. It was like beauty… like the horizon… like the good in the world that showed itself again and again, everywhere he looked.

  It was without end.

  END

  Thank you, Gracias, Dank u wel… and a peek behind the curtain

  (a.k.a. Ten Things You Didn’t Know About This Book)

  Hello, lovely reader!

  I admit it, I’ve got an addiction. Or maybe an affliction? Day and night, there’s a constant stream of beautiful men who live in my head, and as soon as I start writing one couple’s love story, another dozen start clamoring to get out. And yet… and yet… as impatient as I always get to write All The Stories, the moment I type “End” on one and have the chance to start another, I immediately start missing the boys who I’ve just spent so much time with.

  And right now?

  As excited as I am to start Brody and Will’s love story (Fighting For Love), I have to admit, I’m already missing Zach and Micah like crazy. I spent a lot of time with these two, and the only thing that makes it bearable to let them go is knowing that they’ll get to spend a little time with you, too. (Thank you for that!)

  And while I’m at it with the thank yous, here are a few more:

  Writing wouldn’t be nearly as fun if I didn’t have my bestie, Dillon Hunter, to bounce every idea off, write late-night loopy versions of scenes that will never see the light of day for, and—when my stories start to go off the rails—get nudged back in the right direction by. Dill is by far one of my favorite human beings on the planet, and not just because we share a mutual love of romantic fromage and happily-ever-afters. Zach and Micah’s story is far better than it would have been if I hadn’t gotten to share every day of writing it with him.

  Dill, I adore you. Thank you for all the things. (YTB!)

  And then there are my other supportive writing friends, my brilliant cover artist, amazing beta readers, fabulous editor, incredible proofing team, and the wonderful, helpful series fans who contributed in so many ways to helping Zach and Micah’s story come together.

  Cait Forester, Amelia Faulkner, Ed Davies, Zach Jenkins, Mena Carson, Indica Snow, KT Obermanns, Ron McOwen, Elizabeth Peters, Kitti Crawford, Micki Jones, Courtney Bassett, Ava Thorpe, Alicia Lee, Nicky Ryan, Kaila Karg, Denise GremoryKohta, Tanja Ongkiehong-Maas, Amanda Viecelli, Izzy Ferreira, Marsha Lyn Weaver, Rachel Richardson, Ruth Laureano, and my entire ARC team… I appreciate you guys so much, you have no idea.

  Every one of you has improved this book in a variety of little and not-so-little ways, and have made my time writing it a joy.

  Thank you. Gracias. Dank u wel.

  And now a few fun facts to share, because writing is always about more than just the words that end up on screen… and in storytelling, there’s always more to the story. Let me pull back the curtain and share ten things you didn’t know about Looking For Love:

  —oh, and if any of you have been tempted to skip ahead to this section before actually reading the book, be warned: there are definitely minor spoilers here!—

  Looking For Love Fun Fact #1

  “But… where do your ideas come from???”

  Um… everywhere? All the time. Seriously, I
have no shortage. An abundance. A plethora. A glut. (Wow, that’s totally a word that looks almost as ugly as it sounds… but I’ll still use it anyway because, for real, I’ve got too many. It’s a little ridiculous.) My storybox (a.k.a. my overly fertile imagination) is constantly overflowing… to the point that sometimes I want to put a cork in it… yell “Stahhhhhhp!”… or just sit down and cry because I will Never, Ever Be Able To Write Them All. But one of the most interesting things to me is how the stories I do end up writing often end up looking nothing at all like the idea I started with.

  Somehow, the story I think I want to tell always ends up shifting and changing and evolving and growing as it comes to life. Here’s a peek of some of how that happened with Looking For Love:

  I knew I wanted to write about a photographer after listening to a Ted Talk a few months ago (I’m a total Ted Talk junkie). And by “I knew I wanted to…” what I mean is that I had the audio playing while I was in the shower one day, and then the speaker said “the camera was an excuse to talk to strangers,” and BAM. A full-blown character—shy, but coming out of his shell—sprang to life in my head. (This required me to jump out of the shower with soap in my eyes, slip on the wet tile, catch myself on the towel bar, grab my phone and start awkwardly poking at it in a desperate attempt to save the idea while it was fresh… while simultaneously wiping at my stinging eyes and yelling “I’m fine, no, that was just me,” to my husband in regard to the whole crashing-slipping-knocking things over bit.)

  TMI?

  Sorry-not-sorry. *Grin* I’m also prone to bolting upright in the middle of the night with story, scene, and character ideas, frantically pulling off to the side of the road while driving to record inspiration before it’s gone, and yelling “Shhhh!” at my kids when something starts brewing in my head, usually accompanied by frantic arm waving as I try to mime to them to STOP TALKING SO I DON’T LOSE IT BEFORE I WRITE IT DOWN.

  Okay, but back to this.

  So, the photographer I originally thought I wanted to write about was a far different person than Micah Finn Rawlings ended up being, but that’s part of the whole shifting/changing/evolving thing I mentioned. (HERE is that Ted Talk if you’re interested… yeah, see? I bet you don’t recognize Micah in this at all. Plus, gawd. It will make you cry.—“What will happen to Adrian the day his phone stops ringing?”—Seriously, I can’t even. And yet… this was the spark that Micah initially came from.) Along the way, many things nudged Micah from who I originally thought he would be into the character he actually became, but the biggest one was when I ran across an article about Mike May.

  (No, despite the similarity in names, Micah wasn’t named in tribute to Mike May… skip ahead to #2 if you want to find out who Micah’s name is a tribute to.)

  Anyway, Mike May’s story is pretty freaking amazing. If you’re interested, you can read about it in depth HERE… and if you do, you’ll probably recognize quite a few things that inspired Micah’s characterization and backstory. The biggest of which, obviously, being the whole “I was blind, but now I see” bit.

  (…and, great. Now I’ve got Amazing Grace as an ear worm. Thanks, me.)

  Still, Micah’s story is not Mike May’s. In regard to sight restoration, I definitely took some artistic license. I tend to be a bit of an over-researcher—and I’m always very conscious of wanting to be respectful of, and do some justice to, the kind of experiences that will never be my own—but at the end of the day, I write fiction, yo. Sometimes I’ve got to tweak reality to fit the love story I want to tell. Example: Letting Micah somewhat-successfully navigate the world on his own—sans cane or guide dog or other mobility aids. In real life, years after having his sight restored, Mike May still uses both—and for a lot of the reasons I tried to illustrate with Micah.

  (It’s kind of crazy/kind of amazing to think about just how much our experience of the world is due to what our brain chooses to tell us, versus due to some kind of static “reality.” HERE is another interesting Ted Talk that touches on this subject… did I mention I’m a Ted Talk junkie? *grin* But I know you’re not reading this for all my Ted Talk recommendations, so I’ll restrain myself from including more of them and move on to…)

  Looking For Love Fun Fact #2

  Zach and Micah, sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G… *grin* I love/hate coming up with character names. It’s fun and maddening and colors the whole tone of just about everything for me. (Quote from Dill: “OMG I swear if I ever meet a ‘Janis’ irl I will hate her on sight!” … sorry, any real-life Janises who may be reading. And… wow. That name looks kind of wrong in the plural, doesn’t it?) Anyway, refocusing here: Yes, stories often spring almost full-blown into my head, but naming the characters? That part sometimes takes me a while. As some of you already know—especially those of you who read my books across multiple pen names—I do have a bad habit of recycling some of the names I like best. But there are only so many times I can name my boys “Ben” or “Danny,” right? *wink*

  Once in a while—when the stars align and I’ve made it onto Santa’s “nice” list and the odds prove to be ever in my favor—the name-fairy will flutter down from her glittering land of rainbows and inspiration and gently tap me on the head with her wand, dropping a ready-made character name into my brain… kind of like a toy surprise at the bottom of a cracker jack box, or a spare, forgotten twenty, shoved into the pocket of a winter coat that hasn’t been worn since the year before. Usually, though? My writing time tends to fall during the fairy’s all-too-frequent coffee breaks, and I’m stuck looking to my favorite real-life people for name-inspiration.

  Zach and Micah’s names ended up coming easy. In Zach’s case… well, I’m not saying the name is a tribute to my friend and fellow romance author Zach Jenkins (who may or may not have had a certain side-character in my Dragon’s Destiny series named after him, too)… but I’m not saying the name wasn’t a tribute to him, either. And Micah? His name is a tribute to one of my bestie’s characters. (Dill’s Micah is featured in his free novella Spotlight.) Yep, that’s right… I don’t just recycle my own character names, I recycle Dillon’s, too. Hahaha! (ILU Dill.)

  …and then there’s the supporting cast. *grin* I love writing side characters. I’ve got a ridiculous number of bookmarks set up for baby name sites, census lists, popular names by birth-year, popular names by ethnicity, popular names by first letter, by number of syllables, by meaning… but the most fun? If you know me at all, you’ll probably guess: Using my side characters as tributes to real life people who matter to me. (Or, sometimes—I’m looking at you, Robbie’s dad in Again—casting the villains appropriately. *Cough* “Donald” *cough*)

  For Looking For Love, most of the side-character names came from a group of fantastic readers who jumped in to help me out when I needed it. One of them (Alicia Lee) even made me break one of my hard and fast writing rules (I don’t like using multiple names that start with the same first letter in the same book.) Alicia won me over when she admitted that she’s my detail-obsessed soul-sister—a.k.a. that she pulled up a Boeing 737 seating chart while reading Ready For Love, just like I did while writing it. She also caught an embarrassing continuity error in The Beloved Series—no, I’m not going to tell you what it was, but yes, I did upload the fix,—so even though I already had an “Amanda” and an “Ana” in Looking For Love, I just had to name a character after her, too. *Grin*

  The other readers who were kind enough to lend me their names for the book came from my amazing ARC team: Tanja Ongkiehong-Maas, Amanda Viecelli, Izzy (Ana) Ferreira, Rachel Richardson, and Marsha Lyn Weaver. (Did you see what I did there with Rachel and Marsha? Mm-hmm. That’s right. Hyphenation for the win, yo!)

  Looking For Love Fun Fact #3

  Sam. I just adore him. That statement applies to both Sam Tseng, who sprang to life out of that bottomless storybox in my head, and Sam Tsui, who actually exists out in the real world. *grin* Sam Tsui’s music has been my writing soundtrack for a lot of the books on this pen name, and e
ven if my book-Sam isn’t actually intended to “be” real-life Sam—I’m going to go ahead and assume that Sam Tsui doesn’t talk with his mouth open or necessarily prefer fire sauce or call anyone “bro”—Sam Tseng was most definitely named in tribute.

  (If you don’t know Sam Tsui’s music, HERE is one of my favorite gateway drugs: His real life wedding video to Casey Breves… and yes, for those of you who’ve read my Delicious series, this is the video I binge-watched while writing the short freebie I Do.)

  But here’s the thing about Sam, and I’m just going to put it out there: Sam is straight. Like, really straight. (I mean Sam Tseng, of course, not Sam Tsui.) So, in answer to the messages I’ve already gotten and some that I suspect might be coming:

  No, Sam will not be getting his own love story.

  He will not suddenly discover that he’s bisexual.

  He’s not “gay for you.”

  He’s not going to develop a sudden craving for D… or come out of the closet he didn’t realize he’d been living his whole life in… or suddenly start popping wood at the sight of some hottie’s sexy V-thing. (What is that thing called? You know, the drool-worthy body part that looks like a six-pack chalice… like a frame for all the bits you just want to lick… the part that looks so damn good when a super-fit guy wears low-slung shorts….?)

  {…}

  {…}

  {brb… fanning self}

  Okay, um, what?

  Right. We were talking about Sam Tseng. Now, don’t get me wrong, I adore all those not-so-straight-after-all tropes in fiction—and yes, I realize that they happen way more often than some people realize in real life, too—but some guys are just straight. *shrug*

  I love Sam, too, but let’s just accept him for who he is, and move on, mkay?

  Looking For Love Fun Fact #4

  Here’s a secret: each and every time I want to describe a character’s outfits, I send Dill a frantic message. (Example: “OMG… what is Micah wearing for his first date with Zach???”) And Dill, because he’s amazing in every way, will use his Google-fu to find exactly the right ensemble. (Please pronounce that the French way in your head, the way I am, to get the full effect.)