Love Happens Anyway

by RJ Scott

  I wondered what he would ask me, but he just handed me a glass and gestured to an array of soft drinks and wine. “Help yourself,” he instructed. So I did, one huge glass of water that fizzed and popped with raspberry on my tongue.

  “Mom! Why is the table set for—?”

  The shouting was accompanied by the kitchen door opening and I glanced up to see Derek standing in the doorway.

  I placed my glass on the side and waited. This could go two ways. He could walk over and kiss me, or he could ask what the hell I was doing here. He waited too long and I wasn’t having that. I took the five or so strides that separated us and kissed him.

  I didn’t dip him to the floor, but jeez, I kissed the life out of him, with his parents just a few feet behind me.

  When we separated he was bewildered, startled, shocked, I could list a whole raft of adjectives, but mostly I wanted to focus on his green eyes and the warmth there.

  “Hey, Luke,” he whispered.

  I kissed him one last time. “Hey. Your mom invited me to dinner.”

  “Yes, I did,” Belinda walked past with plates. “And I bet you have a funny story to tell us, Derek, about why you thought you needed to hire a boyfriend? Right?”

  Robert bustled past with oven gloves and a huge tray of lasagna, and winked at us both. “C’mon boys.”

  “They know,” Derek murmured.

  I laced our fingers. “Oh yeah, they know all right.”

  “Did you tell them?”

  I huffed. “Do I look stupid?”

  Then it was as if the dam broke and he was stricken, “Luke, I know you said you wanted to wait until after Christmas, but then I wanted to call you, and I’m sorry I didn’t call you. But, I wanted to wait until the money I gave you wasn’t this huge thing between us.”

  “I didn’t call you either, because I was embarrassed I let you go.” There I’d admitted it. “We have something too good to let go.”

  Derek was surprised and then realization flooded his expression. “You know what we are?”

  “Attracted to each other?”

  “That, and we’re idiots for not acting on it.”

  And I wasn’t going to argue about that.

  After all, if our moms said it, it had to be true

  Christmas Eve dinner was interesting, the food wonderful, the teasing intense. Of course it helped that Derek and I held hands. It always helped when we held hands.

  “Tell us more about your bar,” Robert said, when the teasing was on a lull and we were all fat and tired from second helpings of lasagna, and a rich apple pie with so much ice cream it was nearly swimming.

  “Halligans is in the Financial District,” I began, knowing that this was the point when things got serious. You couldn’t tell the full story of Halligans’ place in New York without touching on a lot of subjects. “It was my grandpa’s bar, he bought it in the fifties, and it passed to my mom when she was only twenty-two. She met my dad there, a firefighter looking to go to the nearest bar where his service colleagues met. He was adamant it was love at first sight and she owned his heart forever; she always said she made him work for it. Mom still owns the place, but my sister and I invested as well.”

  “After your accident,” Robert said.

  “Yes, after that. We all invested and gave the bar a new lease on life, and it certainly helped to get the extra money from Derek.” I couldn’t help the gentle reminder of why we were there, but Derek didn’t look stricken, he was smiling at me, all kinds of fondly and with bright eyes.

  “Has your father passed?” Robert asked, and winced as Belinda obviously kicked him under the table. She probably thought I wouldn’t want to pull up the memories, but the Freedom Tower was right there, I lived in a memory capsule every day I worked. And I was damn proud.

  “He went into the towers,” was all I needed to say. It was a shorthand we used in the city. If he’d have made it home it wouldn’t even have been a story that was mine to tell. A lot of people were affected that day, but bravely, with strength, they carried on, and some carried a survivor’s guilt that would never leave. The fact I said nothing else was enough for Robert to know that Dad hadn't come home.

  “I’m sorry for your loss.” Robert laced his fingers with Belinda’s.

  The mood was a little subdued for a while, but in a way we all had things to process. We cleared the table and the kitchen and slowly the darker thoughts gave way to the spirit of Christmas. We talked about the cat rescue, advertising, Halligans, football, hockey, and I heard one or two embarrassing stories of the various Christmas plays that Derek had been in.

  When the time came to go, Belinda hugged me, and when I shook Robert’s hand he too pulled me in for a hug. I left my small gifts under their huge tree, and in turn they handed me a present for me to take home.

  And then it was just me and Derek in the hallway as his parents decided that it was way past time for them to go to bed. He tugged me out of the front door and into the softly falling snow. I thought I would be cold but God, this was perfect.

  “So, we’re giving this thing a try?” Derek asked, scuffing his toe in the thin layer of snow covering the cleared path and not quite looking into my eyes. A snowflake fell on the end of his nose and I watched him wipe it away. I tilted his head with a finger beneath his chin, and then cradled his face.

  “I want to give things a go,” I said.

  “Luke, I think I might be falling in love with you. Is it wrong to feel like that?”

  He looked so uncertain and I wanted to kiss that uncertainty away.

  “Love is never wrong.” God, I sounded like a Hallmark card.

  He nodded, as if I had said something real. I guess I had.

  “Like my dad with my mom; I think you’re in my heart,” he said.

  I kissed him then. “You know what, Derek, I never expected to find a guy this way.”

  “Doesn’t matter how we met,” he said. “Love happened anyway.” We kissed, hugged, and he waved me from the house.

  And I grinned like a freaking idiot all the way back to the city.

  Epilogue

  One Year Later, Derek

  Halligans opened for the evening on Christmas Day, which meant that the place was empty for the daylight hours, which in turn meant that the Devers family had invited the Hendersons for Christmas dinner.

  Having Christmas at any other place than the house in Larchmont was a new experience for me, but then my life had been turned upside-down this last year.

  The office move had been an intense time, but our new offices, shiny, and open plan meant that there were plenty of chances for me to talk to my friends at the water cooler. Of course it helped that Luke was friends with everyone, and that they all loved him. We hadn't mentioned the whole fake boyfriend thing to anyone outside of the family, just began calling him Luke, and that was it. I think most people at the party last Christmas wouldn’t have heard his name over the sound of seasonal songs at full volume.

  This year though, they knew his name.

  Particularly when, in the middle of my speech about the year, he’d gone to one knee and proposed.

  Right there, in the middle of the rented hall, with the scarlet-dressed tree glowing with a myriad of sparkling lights, he proposed.

  Of course I said yes, I mean, he’s everything I want in a man. Tall, dark, with brown eyes, and a firefighter. Or rather, he’s all that and more.

  He’s the man who makes me feel as if I can take on the world, the one who makes me smile, and laugh and tells me he loves me every day.

  I put the last of the plates into the big dishwasher. We had an hour or so and then the bar would open. I couldn’t see Luke in the kitchen, but I knew where I’d find him, and I pulled on my hat and coat, scarf, gloves, and the extra layers that meant a bitter wind in downtown New York would be bearable. He was dressed the same way, smiling at me when I walked in, the smile reaching his hazel eyes, and God, I was so in love.

  “I’ve got something to show you,
” he said, and tugged me out of the bar. I assumed we’d be walking a certain way, but he was pulling me in the opposite direction. Then he stopped and pointed up. “Look.”

  I looked up at what he was pointing at and let out a snort of laughter. No more than two minutes’ walk from Halligans was a huge billboard for the new AbbaLister white chocolate coated raisins. And right where I could see him, the biggest version of the snowman I had drawn. Kind of cheeky, blushing cheeks, a quirky smile, his gloved hands holding a sign. The campaign had been huge, the story of the snowman who stole your candy was cute and on point and the clients loved it. My first real solo success story, and we already had the concept finalized for the reindeer storyline next year. Problem was, I was kind of addicted to the raisins now, and AbbaLister had given me a huge crate of the things as a thanks to me and the staff. I think I’ve eaten my entire weight in white chocolate covered raisins.

  “Wow.”

  He hugged me. And then we took a circuitous walk back around Halligans and the city opened to crystal glass and snow. We’d arrived at One World Trade Center, or as he called it Freedom Tower.

  He traced his father’s name in the bronze parapet, and murmured something soft that I didn’t hear. I was trying my best not to stare, and looked at the other names, and up at the tower. The impact of what I was seeing never failed to leave me breathless and with a weight pressing on my chest. I hadn't lost anyone that day, but the world had shifted so fast that we’d all felt the grief.

  We walked back hand-in-hand and the solemnity slid away as we neared the bar and bypassed it to keep walking in the lightly falling snow.

  “I love you.” He stopped walking. We were under that damn billboard again.

  He kissed me, I kissed him back, and then we hugged and talked wedding plans and snowmen and had another heated debate about me living over the bar with him. I wanted to stay there forever; he said we needed our own place, something where we split the rent

  All I wanted was to be with him. It didn’t matter where or what we could afford, or what people insisted we should do. I’d rather donate to a cat rescue than buy an apartment that was a huge vacuum for stuff I didn’t need.

  I smiled as we kissed again, and then it was my turn.

  “You know how much I love you?” I asked.

  “How much?” he asked, in all seriousness, even though there was the hint of a smile in his tone. He knew what I was going to say, I said it often enough.

  “I love you more than white chocolate coated raisins.”

  And then he laughed. “That’s a whole lot of love.”

  * * *

  THE END

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  Meet RJ Scott

  RJ is the author of the over one hundred published novels and discovered romance in books at a very young age. She realized that if there wasn’t romance on the page, she could create it in her head, and is a lifelong wr
iter.

  She lives and works out of her home in the beautiful English countryside, spends her spare time reading, watching films, and enjoying time with her family.

  The last time she had a week’s break from writing she didn't like it one little bit and has yet to meet a bottle of wine she couldn’t defeat.

  www.rjscott.co.uk | rj@rjscott.co.uk

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