“Why does she want to know?”
I thought about that for a minute as we continued taking spoonfuls of ice cream. I got lucky with one that was full of fudgy goodness, both the solid and the syrupy kind, and I moaned when it touched my tongue.
“Guess I can’t compare with Mackinaw Island Fudge.”
After slapping his chest, I said, “Please. I make much more noise for you.” I swallowed. “But Jess has told me that we’re ruining her. She didn’t care before about a steady boyfriend and now she wants what we have.”
He reached out and tucked a piece of hair behind my ear then trailed his thumb down my cheek. “Nobody can have what we do, baby. This is for us.”
I leaned into his hand and kissed the palm.
He wasn’t wrong, but I would’ve loved for Jess to find her own piece of happiness just like we had. But when he said things like that, everything inside of me melted much like the fudgy syrup in our ice cream. Harrison knew exactly how to make me feel special.
“So I have a question for you,” he told me as we cleaned up our mess.
“Shoot.”
“With Valentine’s Day coming up, I have to work that Saturday. The actual day.”
“Oh, I don’t care,” I told him honestly. “I don’t swoon for V-Day.”
We finished in the kitchen then headed up the stairs for bed. He was behind me likely watching my ass as I moved.
“Still,” Harrison said. “I’d like to celebrate it with you. We haven’t gotten to really spend any holidays together.”
I flopped onto the bed while he turned the light off. The moon shone in through the curtains, so it wasn’t pitch black. Still, I switched on the lamp on the side table.
“We had New Year’s this year.”
“But we weren’t together yet.” That was also true.
When Harrison and I had been together before, we’d met right before summer and by Thanksgiving, he’d been gone. I’d come back last summer and we’d met up again on Christmas. He wasn’t wrong. We’d been apart for every holiday that mattered to couples or to anyone for that matter.
“I’m in for whatever you want to do,” I finally said. “But you have to work.”
“Yeah.” He pulled me over into his arms. “I was thinking we could do ours on Friday and I know that’s not the actual day—”
“I said I’m in for whatever you want. Friday is a fantastic day. Do you want me to rearrange my calendar to spend the day together?”
“No.” I could feel him shake his head, but since I was lying on his chest, I couldn’t see it. “We can do it that night and I was thinking we’d stay in. I’ll take care of everything.”
While letting a big stretch take me over, I said, “You’re even more perfect than Jessica even knows.”
His quiet chuckle was the music I fell asleep to that night.
3
Harrison
It’d been a week.
Valentine’s Day was Saturday and I wanted nothing more than to spend it with my girlfriend, Luna Love, but with how busy our restaurant, The Bell Jar, would be, there was no way I could have the night off. That night was all about romance and love and where would everyone be without their best sommelier and bar manager? My presence was basically mandatory.
Which meant our Valentine’s Day had to happen on Friday night. Marilee, my boss, didn’t mind that I wasn’t working that night. Or if she did, she didn’t show it.
I’d been planning all week at my winery so that Luna wouldn’t get a peek. That was where I was when I got a phone call I never would have expected. I almost dropped the glass I was holding when the man on the line said he was calling for Alexandre Badeaux from L’Assiette in France. He was one of the most well-known master sommeliers.
“Yes, I’m calling because you were highly recommended to study under Alexandre beginning this summer,” the man, whose name I either missed or had completely forgotten, told me with his thick French accent.
Alexandre Badeaux was famous in the wine world. He only trained one sommelier per year for the master certificate. It was a huge honor, to be honest. You had to be recommended to him. It wasn’t even something you could apply for. This was a huge thing.
The Frenchman explained what all that would entail and I listened intently while asking the appropriate questions.
Yet I knew, without having to ponder long, that I couldn’t take it. There was no way Luna could go with me and there was zero chance I’d go that long without her again. History would not repeat itself.
“This is a huge honor but unfortunately, that won’t work for me and I have to decline,” I told him.
“You can’t be serious.”
“I’m sorry,” I told him.
We ended the call quickly after that and I didn’t have an ounce of regret. There was no chance I’d leave Luna again. Didn’t matter the opportunity.
There was nothing to think about.
Luna was in Lake Shores so I would be too. There was nothing to think about and nothing to discuss. It wasn’t even worth mentioning to her because she’d think it was her holding me back when in reality it was me making choices about my life.
I did think about the call for a while when I went back to planning my Valentine’s Day surprise for Luna. Not because I regretted turning it down but because someone thought enough of me to recommend me in the first place.
That itself was huge.
We got a lot of tourists in Lake Shores and the winery stayed busy all year long. Not as busy as I’d like, but I’d only bought the place a couple of months ago, had hired my team, and I thought they were doing a great job. I did not doubt that we were going in the right direction and I’d be where I wanted to soon enough.
Time would tell.
But on this Friday night, after the winery closed, I came out and got everything I’d been keeping there then headed back home to set up. I started a fire in the brick fireplace, which she’d barely used until I moved in, picked out the perfect wine, lit some candles, and had the wine glasses set up along with a charcuterie board that I’d made myself. It looked fantastic.
There were flowers and chocolate and what I hoped would be the perfect gift.
Damn, I was glad to have her back in my life. When I’d seen her at that Christmas dinner, I’d thought my eyes had been messing with me. I’d missed her for so long that I’d thought I’d finally cracked and had imagined her there in the restaurant where I worked.
Much to my delight, it had been her and I wasn’t letting her get away again.
After kicking my own ass for two years for not chasing her to Arizona, I had my second chance. I wasn’t going to waste it.
Now I just had to wait for Luna.
As if on cue, headlights flashed behind the closed shades. It had to be her. I wasn’t expecting anyone else. Her car door shut and it was only a minute later that she came through the door.
My girl was a sight for sore eyes, even though I’d just seen her this morning before she’d left for work, it was never for long enough.
She’d changed since she’d gone in this morning, I assumed before leaving the spa. This morning she’d been in the black uniform that she’d chosen when she’d opened the place.
“Hi,” she said, giving me a huge smile. No matter how tired she was when she got home, she almost always greeted me with a smile.
Luna was beautiful with extra-long, light blonde hair and eyes so blue that they looked like sparkling sapphires. The eyes had hooked me from the start.
“Hey, baby. How was work?” I asked as I crossed the room to catch her up in my arms and give her a quick kiss hello.
“Busy.” She shrugged off her winter coat as I released her.
I couldn’t wait for the weather to warm up so we could spend some time at the beach and bask in the warmth of the sun. She was wearing a pair of dark skinny jeans with a thin, navy sweater that was long enough to cup her ass, and tall, brown riding boots. The boots had a practical purpose, given the amou
nt of snow we got every year.
Luna sighed. “Everybody wants to be nice and relaxed for whatever their Valentine’s Day plans are.”
The wood in the fireplace snapped from the other side of the room.
“This place looks great,” she told me after sliding her boots off then wandered toward the fire.
I’d told her I was planning something special for Valentine’s Day tonight because I had to work tomorrow. But I’d gone all out.
Luna pulled off her boots then settled down in front of the fire, again something that had a dual purpose. One being to keep us warm, the other romance. The way the light from the flames licked her skin had all the parts of me waking up. Not that I didn’t always want her, but I didn’t usually always have a half-erection stirring in my pants at any given moment just from laying eyes on her.
But tonight was different. I’d almost lost her once for good and I wasn’t going to let that happen again. Nothing would come between us ever again.
As we got ourselves comfortable, her gift was already burning a hole in my pocket. Well, it wasn’t actually in my pocket, but metaphorically, it was still burning.
“I turned the hot tub on in case we want to go in later,” I told her. I had tried to think of everything.
“Oh, perfect.”
“Even if we don’t use it, it’s ready. And I’ll turn it off before we go to sleep either way.”
Luna pushed a piece of hair behind her ear and smiled up at me. My girl was a lot shorter than me, given that I was over six feet tall and she was five-feet-four inches, but being that much smaller, she could tuck herself right into my side, and somehow, it made me feel powerful. As if she needed me to protect her when in reality, I knew she could protect herself if she had to. I didn’t want her to ever have to.
“You’re being very nice to me,” she said with that smile still on her face.
“I’m always nice to you, but this is our first Valentine’s Day and you said you would rather stay in.”
She nodded, her hair swishing over the fabric of her shirt. “You are always nice to me.” She scooted toward me, then brought my mouth down to meet hers. She kissed me like really kissed me, all sweet and deep with her tongue stroking inside of my mouth. Almost made me forget what we were doing here. “Maybe I can be really nice to you later,” she said softly, her lips brushing against mine as she spoke.
That half-erection became full and raging when she was barely touching me. That was how much of a reaction my body had with her. Always had with her.
“You can be very nice to me whenever you’d like,” I said quietly back. Not completely sure what exactly she’d meant by be nice to me, but I’d take whatever it was. I had ideas of my own. “I can’t believe it’s been less than two months since I saw you at the restaurant.”
“I know.” She settled back into her own space. She picked an olive off the tray and popped it into her mouth while I poured the wine.
“Sometimes it feels like we were never apart,” I said.
“Not to me,” she countered. “That was a long two years.” Luna sounded so sad when she said it and while we’d talked about our time apart, we hadn’t gone into everything. Tonight wasn’t a night I wanted her sad, though.
I took a piece of her hair between my thumb and middle finger and rolled it just to have a connection.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “I don’t like to think about it.”
“So what were your first thoughts when you saw me at the restaurant?” She picked up a piece of meat and a slice of cheese from the board and folded them together before taking a bite.
“I thought I was hallucinating.”
She cocked her head to the side. “You did not.”
I nodded. “I did. You were the last person I thought I would see that night. I figured it’d be fun and Killian was there because Mom and Dad went to see Mom’s parents, but I just thought it was going to be another workday. No big deal.” I glanced up and found her watching me. “But then there you were and I had to do a double-take to make sure it was really you.”
“I didn’t know you worked there, which I’ve obviously said before.”
“Jessica did.”
She spun her head in my direction. “She did?”
“Yeah. I see her around town all the time.”
“That sneak. She was here when I saw the invite. I’d signed up for a bunch of newsletters for local businesses to see how they were doing it when I was prepping the spa. So she knew then that you worked there?”
“She had to.”
“She didn’t say anything, but I’m clearly glad that we went. It’s like the universe was pushing us together.”
Luna finished that first glass of wine, so I poured her a second. I was picking at the food in front of us as well, but the little edge of nervousness wouldn’t let me eat. No idea why I had any unease about this. I knew exactly how it was going to go. Or I thought I did anyway.
“I’m thankful to the universe because I didn’t even know you were back in town.”
“So when you saw Jess all the time she never mentioned it?” I shook my head. “She didn’t tell you about my mom?”
“No.” I scooted toward her and ran my thumb over her cheek while pushing my hand into her hair. “If I would’ve heard about your mom, I would’ve reached out.”
She ran her tongue over her bottom lip and nodded quickly.
I changed the subject then to something happier than our awful time apart when I asked her about her favorite date that we’d ever gone on. There had been a couple of overnights away as well as a weekend or two. There hadn’t been time for a real vacation and we were going to change that soon.
She talked more about the nights we’d spent in than the nights we’d spent out.
Those were my favorites too.
We spent an hour in the living room tonight, talking and laughing. We finished the bottle of wine and most of the food I’d set out. Luna was leaning against the couch with her legs out in front of her while I’d twisted to my side, stroking her hair as we relived older memories and new ones.
Her gift was ever front in my mind.
“So I got you something.” She bit her lips together then crawled over to her purse and pulled an envelope out before coming back to me. She stayed up on her knees but rested her ass against the heels of her feet and held the gift out to me.
“You didn’t have to get me anything.”
She rolled her eyes. “I know, but this is really for us anyway.”
“Hmm….” I raised an eyebrow. “Prostate massage?”
Luna snorted as I laughed. “No, but I could do that if you want me to.”
My humor faltered. That wasn’t the comeback I’d been expecting. “You know how?”
She exaggeratedly rolled her eyes. “I’m a massage therapist.” That didn’t make sense, but the twitch at the corners of her mouth made me believe that maybe she wasn’t joking. “Just open it,” she pushed.
I did and when I pulled the papers out, nothing was clear. They looked like homemade coupons but I didn’t fully understand for what or where. She’d made them on construction paper and her beautiful handwriting covered them.
“What am I looking at?”
“OK, well, I’m not crafty and made these myself because they’re cuter than just some reservation confirmations.” She plopped to her ass next to me. Our thighs brushed against each other. “But it’s a reservation at The Whitney in Detroit. Not until May because that was the earliest one that would work for us and it’s for a Saturday that neither of us seemed to have anything. If you work, I’ll have to change it, but I thought we could go down on Friday and come home Sunday. Make a weekend of it.”
“You got us reservations at The Whitney?” I knew there were better words I could’ve used but I’d mentioned this place several times. Never had I thought she’d have pulled that detail out of all of our conversations and this was somewhere I wanted to go. Their chef was top-notch, I’d heard.
“Of course I want you to go with me. This is amazing.” I slid my hand behind her head and pulled her to my lips. It was a kiss of gratitude for the gift, not to start something but fuck I wanted to start undressing her.
I still had something to give her before I could give it to her.
“Thank you,” I said once I’d finished kissing her. “This will be so much fun.” We’d have to dress up a bit but there were several dresses in Luna’s closet that I’d give a finger or toe to see her in again. Probably a toe so it wouldn’t hurt my job.
“You’re welcome.” Luna had this sweet smile on her face. One that I hoped stayed when I gave her my gift. No. I hoped it would grow.
“I have a gift for you too.”
She raised her eyebrows as I slid my hand under the couch to grab the small box that had been metaphorically burning a hole in my pocket.
“Really?” She bounced a little with excitement.
I pulled the box out and held it up with just my fingertips. The excitement slipped from her face and her mouth formed a soft O. She hadn’t been expecting this at all which was all part of my plan.
Luna scrambled up to her feet, though she wouldn’t have known that was exactly what I wanted her to do. It gave me the chance to move up on my knee the traditional way you ask someone to marry you. It wasn’t required of course but she’d hopped up so here we were.
When I’d thought about asking Luna to marry me, I’d never really thought about the how. The how hadn’t mattered at the time. Now, it mattered. I wanted this to be private, but something she’d remember forever.
I popped the box open and said, “Luna, I love you more than anything in this world. I’m so happy that we found each other again and can’t imagine living the rest of my life without you. Will you marry me?”
Her chest rose and fell quickly and her tongue peeked out of her mouth to wet her lips.
All of Me: A Holiday Bites Novel Page 2
