by K. Bromberg
It’s my turn to laugh. “You kind of made me a social media junkie these past two weeks when I never was before. You see, there’s been this boy I like . . . and he’s been refusing to talk to me in person. But since he only talked to me online, I became one of those annoying people who look at their phone every five seconds.”
“Is that so?” His voice is coy. His expression feigned innocence.
“Mm-hmm.”
“You only just like him?”
I purse my lips. Scrunch my nose. Pretend that I have to think about it. “Hmm. More than like. Definitely love.”
He grants me a quick flash of a grin. “There’s frosting in your hair.” He reaches out and touches it before his eyes find mine again.
“Sorry.”
“I wouldn’t have you any other way. Don’t you know that yet?”
And those words.
Simple acceptance of who I am. It does funny things to my insides, or maybe it’s the man who said them that does.
I smile softly at him, reach down, and link my fingers with his. “Thank you.”
“No. You don’t need to thank me, Saylor. You should never have to apologize for being you. Because you . . . you’re beautiful and smart and sexy and defiant and creative and hot-headed and crazy-funny and spontaneous. I love every single one of those things about you, plus all the other things I forget until you do them and then that makes me remember them.” He smiles again and squeezes my hand. My heart swells. “I walked away ten years ago thinking I could forget you. That I could chase my dreams and move on. That first loves could never be last loves. God, how I was wrong. There’s something to be said for falling in love with someone you grew up with. I know all your flaws, Saylor. Your weaknesses. Your strengths. Your fears. Your mistakes. And I fucking love you for every single one of them. They make you, you. And in turn, they make us, us.”
“Hayes.” His name is a sigh of affection on my lips.
“No. Shh. I’m the actor, I get to hog the stage right now.” I laugh as he does. Know he’s joking and nod in agreement.
“What is it about actors and wanting attention?”
“Funny. Very funny,” he teases before leaning in and kissing me again. This time though he slips his tongue between my lips and takes the kiss a little deeper. His hands tremble as they frame my face and that little action tells me everything I need to know. If he’s nervous, then this matters to him, and I’ve been worth the trouble. “What I have with you, Saylor, I don’t want with anyone else. You’ve marked me. Not just my heart with your love or my mind with your words, but more so my soul with everything you are. Everything you aspire to be. And everything you think we can be together.”
He puts a finger to my lips when I start to speak. I try to tell him this is all too much, too kind, too overwhelming when for so long there was nothing but emptiness without him. But how can I say to stop when my heart feels so full, my soul so completed, when I can’t remember it ever feeling this way before?
“I know it’s been sudden, and that all of this has come out of nowhere. Knocked us on our asses in bright paparazzi camera flashes of light. But it’s real, Saylor. We’re real. The realest thing I’ve ever had in my life that I’ve built on making believe.” He looks down at our fingers linked together before lifting his eyes to mine and smiling softly. “I can’t promise you it will be easy because you’ve gotten a taste of my craziness, but I can promise you that we’ll make us work. We’ll figure out a way. Buy a house between our jobs. Or open a second bakery in Hollywood. Buy a damn chopper if need be so you can make your deliveries. Whatever it takes, I’ll do it because I don’t want to go another day without knowing you’re mine. We’ve lost too much time already, and I don’t want to miss any more. So what do you say, Ships? Want to try to make this thing work long-term for us?”
My whole body trembles from the truth in his words and the honesty in his eyes. Tears blur my vision but when I look at him, I remember the boy with gangly legs and a Star Wars obsession. I recall our first kiss and reminisce over the nerves we shared our first time together. Then I think of the few occasions he held me while I cried and the numerous times we’ve laughed so hard our sides hurt. And then I see the man he’s turned into. The considerate, funny, handsome, intelligent, romantic man he is, and I know without a doubt we can make this work.
He’s my soul mate.
There’s only one love that matters more than your first love: Your last love. How damn lucky am I that both of mine are the same person?
With that thought on my mind, I lean forward and press the sweetest of kisses against his lips. Lean my forehead against his. Close my eyes. And feel at home.
“I know you say words are cheap but those words you just said? Those words were priceless, Hayes Whitley.”
“So are you.” He wraps his arms around me and pulls me tighter into him.
“And I think long-term suits me just fine.”
“Good. Because I wasn’t taking no for an answer. I brought my A-game again, and you know how good that is.”
My laugh fills the space around us. So many things set right in our world. “About that A-game of yours . . . there seems to be some unfinished business it needs to take care of . . .”
And so by the light of the rising moon, in the place we shared our first kiss, we also share so much more with nothing more than love and possibility between us.
ONE YEAR LATER
“Where are you taking me?” I laugh out as the breeze blows against my cheeks and the ground beneath my feet becomes uneven.
“You’ll see,” Hayes murmurs, his hands covering my eyes over the scarf he’s already secured to ensure I don’t sneak a peek. “A little birthday surprise never hurt anyone.”
We’ve been driving for what feels like forever. I’d like to say I’m good with direction and which way we went, but for all I know we’ve driven in circles for hours and he’s just taken me back to the home we share nestled in the Hollywood Hills to mess with my head. I’ve tried to be patient. Tried to relax and wait for the surprise he has in store for me, and so I occupied myself thinking about the supplies I needed to order for the Brentwood store. And when I had that figured out, I moved on to the list DeeDee had sent over for the original State Street location she runs now.
Shut it down, Saylor. Enjoy the anticipation. Take in the moment. Love your man. Appreciate that Hayes is still trying to be spontaneous and do a little something special for you. Still trying to put you first despite his hectic schedule and the ridiculous demands everyone puts on him.
“Are we going to get a puppy?” There’s amusement in my voice over our long-running joke. How while a puppy is permanent, it’s also the death of so many couples once they realize how hard it is mixing two different ideals to raise something together.
“I told you, we’re not getting a puppy. I don’t need a trial run with you, Ships. I know you’re good for it whenever we decide to raise something together.”
I laugh out loud as he holds me steady when I stumble. “You mean like a sea turtle?”
“If you want to learn how to lay an egg, then be my guest. We can do sea turtles but I was thinking something more along the lines of a blonde-haired, blue-eyed little girl someday.”
“Oh. Okay.” There he goes melting my heart and leaving me speechless. The man has a way of doing that on a continual basis.
And I’m definitely not complaining.
“A few more feet.”
“Okay.” I count ten steps and wonder how many more are his definition of few since the suspense of whatever he’s up to is killing me. And as soon as I think it, he directs me to stop.
“Right here,” he says softly, almost as if he’s trying really hard to concentrate like he sometimes does when running lines. “You ready?”
I chuckle. Suddenly nervous. Was that his hands just shaking?
“Yes.”
The heat of his body leaves mine. “You can look now.”
I slowly pull
off the black scarf and when I do, the sight before me takes my breath away. My mouth falls open, my eyes grow wide, and my head moves from side to side so I can take in my surroundings.
It’s so perfect, so everything, that it takes me a few moments to breathe it all in.
We’re at the base of the tree house, it’s dusk, and Mason jars hang from the tree branches with votive candles lit inside them. Fairy lights twinkle within the tree’s foliage, and are also lighting up the long wispy grass field beyond it. There are flowers too. My mother’s favorite—hydrangeas in their various colors—overflowing from galvanized and patina canisters adorned with lace and burlap bows. It’s stunning.
I’m overwhelmed and in awe and when I turn around again, I’m teary. Ryder, DeeDee, Hayes’s mom, and other mutual friends from Santa Barbara and Los Angeles are here too.
It’s like my brain is so overwhelmed by this breathtaking spectacle of perfection, that I can process the where and the what, but only after I take in the whole of the picture, can I finally process the why.
This isn’t a surprise birthday party. Not in the least.
My hand flies to my mouth. My eyes widen and flood with tears as realization hits when I look back to Hayes in front of me. How did he know this was my dream?
Because he knows me inside and out.
Always has.
Now, he always will.
“What did you do, Hayes?” My words come out in a hushed whisper.
His smile widens. It has a hint of nerves to it but the look in his eyes suggests the nerves are the good kind. The this matters kind.
He glances to the unfamiliar woman off to my right and when she nods at him, the absolute adoration in his expression as he steps closer to me causes goosebumps to erupt across my skin. He reaches out and takes my hand.
“Surprise,” he whispers as every single part of me falls head over heels in love with him all over again.
“Is this what I think . . .?” My voice fades off as I look around us again. Meet the eyes of Ryder who steps up beside Hayes and hands him something, smile so full of love and pride I know the answer to my question immediately.
“I have the stage, Ships. You know how we actors like to hog the spotlight.”
My laugh is instantaneous. My hands tremble in disbelief, and my mind tries to wrap around what he pulled off.
“I tried to think of when I first fell in love with you, Saylor. I thought maybe it was that first day I knocked on your door, asking if Ryder was home, and you peered at me from behind your glasses with a princess crown on your head, a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle shell on your back, and your mom’s high heels that were five sizes too big on your feet.
“But then I remembered that time in junior high when we ditched school and headed out to the lake. You were the only girl who would climb the tree with us and jump off the top branch into the lake without a second thought. The other guys thought it was so cool you’d do that, and I remember thinking how proud I was that you were with me.
“Or that time in high school when Nick Ramos kept bragging how a girl would never pitch well enough to strike him out. How you asked Ryd and me to teach you how to throw a knuckle ball so you could shut him up. How your dad let us stay out way past when the streetlight came on so we could practice. And how when Nick whiffed on that third strike—where you made that baseball dance to the plate—the entire bleachers roared as you put him in his place.”
I stare at Hayes. The memories I forgot coming back to me. And I’m so overwhelmed that I can do nothing more than stand mesmerized and listen.
“You see as I tried to remember the moment I knew I first loved you, I realized there are too many of them to pick from. Because I fell, and fall, in love with something different about you every single day, Ships. You never cease to amaze me. And you’re always making me see you in a new light.
“So I brought you here today because you’re the one, Saylor. You’ve always been the one. And I don’t want to wait another day to tell you that. I don’t want to go through a year of details and planning to have a wedding. That’s not us. We’re spontaneous and unpretentious and only care what our family and friends think . . . and I don’t want to ask you to marry me and then have to wait forever to make you officially mine. I wanted to do it in one fell swoop because why wait? The most important thing I’ve learned from your parents is this: don’t wait for the perfect time to take a chance on your dreams. And you’re my dream, Saylor.”
Speechless, swamped with love, and beyond amazed at him and this idea, I do the only thing I can. I step into him and plant a kiss on his lips. The guests hoot and holler as Hayes slides his hands around my waist and pulls me into him while our kiss lingers before pushing me away and chuckling. “Nice try, but I’m not finished yet.”
He steps back, and with love in his eyes he clears his throat. “Saylor Rodgers, I promise to spend a lifetime loving you just like the first time I saw you—treat you like the princess you are, respect that you’re a badass superhero who can take care of herself, and love that, as much as you are a lady, there’s a little girl inside of you who still likes to play too.”
My heart can’t take any more. It’s so full it might burst. Tears well and slide down my cheeks to meet the smile on my lips. A sob hitches in my chest as I stare at the incredible man in front of me. He squeezes my hand, and his eyes well with tears before he glances to the house up the hill from us. To where my mom or dad used to walk out to the patio and call to us in the tree house. Their way of making sure we knew they were watching in case we were doing things we shouldn’t be doing but probably were. His smile softens when he meets my eyes again and I know he’s remembering them too.
And it feels as though they are here with us right now.
“I want to make more memories with you. Like kisses in a thunderstorm, frosting in your hair, sequins on Oscar night, pepperoni pizza with jalapeños, sitting on the floor watching movies with a dog asleep at our feet, and kids giggling in their bedrooms’ type of memories with you. You’re it for me, Saylor. Always have been. Always will be.
“I know we don’t need an official document or rings on our fingers to tell us we belong together, because we’ve always known it. Always will. But the part of me who looks at you every morning and is proud as hell to call you mine, wants everyone else to know it too. So I brought you here and spoke my heart to ask you a single question. Will you say I do?”
I blink several times as if I’m still trying to believe this is real . . . and happening. But when I look down to find a ring I didn’t even realize he had, being slipped on my finger, I know it is. The ring is sparkly with an inset diamond in the band and the fairy lights around us reflect in it. And even better, as I watch him slip it on, I realize he already has a wedding band on his finger.
I narrow my brow and look up to him. “I wasn’t taking any chances.”
“I can see that.” Looking at him, there isn’t a single doubt in my mind I want to spend the rest of my life with him. Not. One. I stare at our hands together. Our rings. Our fingers intertwined. Then back up to him. “Hayes Whitley, I. Do.”
Our friends and family cheer wildly as I step into him and kiss him with every ounce of love I have within me. My arms are around his neck. His hands frame my face. Our hearts beat against each other’s as one.
When he leans back, his chocolate eyes swim with the love he feels for me. “Saylor Rodgers, I do too.”
We kiss again like we’re each other’s air. Until my laughter bubbles up and over and my lips spread into a smile against his.
So that’s what forever tastes like.
“You really brought your A-game this time.”
He throws his head back and laughs.
Away from the glitz and the glamour, and in a field where we once ran as kids. Under a tree house we shared our first kiss in, and on the property my parents once owned and filled with their unmistakable love. With a small circle of friends and family before us, and fairy lights twi
nkling around us. . .
I marry my best friend.
The boy who stole my chocolate chip cookies.
My kisses.
My time.
My love.
He’s my once in a lifetime.
The man who forever holds my heart.
My happily ever after.
THE END
You’ve already fallen in love with Saylor and Hayes, but many of you want to know more about Ryder? Check out his story in my upcoming novella, Sweet Rivalry:
Ryder Rodgers had a plan.
He was going to stride into the conference room, do the required song and dance over the next five days, and win the biggest contract of his career. But when he walked in and heard the voice of one of his competitors, all his plans were shot to hell.
Harper Denton. She was always on top. In college. First in their class. Always using every advantage to edge him out to win the coveted positions. The only one who could beat him. His academic rival. More like a constant thorn in his side. And his ego’s.
When he heard her voice, he was brought back to years before. To the bitter taste of being second best. But the woman who meets his gaze is nothing like the drab wallflower he used to know. Hell no. She was all woman now: curves, confidence, and staggering sex appeal. And no doubt, still brilliant.
The fact that she’s gorgeous and bright won’t distract him. This time, Ryder’s determined to be the one on top. But not if Harper can help it.
Sweet Rivalry releases February 28th, 2017 and is available for pre-order HERE.
Other Upcoming K. Bromberg Novels
The Player Duet
The Player (Book #1)
The Catch (Book #2)
Everyday Heroes Series
Cuffed (Book #1)
Combust (Book #2)
Cockpit (Book #3)
Thank you . . .
