Page 43 of Love Notes
His breath hitched.“Adam…”
I squeezed my eyes shut.They stung.
Ryan kissed the side of my head.“Me too.I’m falling in love with you too.”
The sunlight warmed my shoulders and back, and Ryan’s arms were as tightly around me as mine were around him.The wind whispered through the trees, and the air was alive with birdsong.A sense of calm and peace stole over me, and I knew two things for certain.Firstly, that everything I’d written in that note was still true.And secondly, that we’d be okay.
“HOLY SHIT,” Isaid hours later as we ate homemade pizza on the sofa.“This is why your bookshelf has aliens instead of books!”
Ryan paused with a piece of pizza halfway to his mouth and grinned.
“I thought it was odd that there was such a cozy vibe to the place but nobody had thought to put any books out for guests,” I said.“Everywhere else I’ve stayed in that leans hard into the cottagecore aesthetic always has books.It makes sense you wouldn’t have them.Why aliens though?”
Ryan laughed softly.“My childhood alien obsession might be a story for another night, okay?”
“Okay,” I said, and then another thought hit me.“Oh.”
He gave me a worried look.“What?”
“This is why you didn’t read my book,” I said.I let out a breath.“Shit.I must have made you feel awful, putting pressure on you like that.”
“You didn’t put pressure on me,” he said, but I noticed he didn’t address the first part of my statement.His cheeks pinked up.“Also…” He pulled his phone out of his pocket and flicked through a couple of screens.“And I am reading your book.”
The familiar tones of Brody Hansen, my narrator, filled the room.
“…and Beckett, the infuriating deputy.His boots crunched in the dirt as he approached, his sharp gaze looking me up and down, taking my measure and quite obviously finding me lacking.‘And you just stumbled across the body, did you, sir?’”
Ryan paused it.“Well, I’m listening to it.”
“Yeah?”I asked, my voice shaking on that small word as warmth filled me.
“Yeah.I wanted to read what you wrote.I’m not far into it yet, but I can see it.The chemistry between them.”
I didn’t give a fuck right now about the sexual tension between Alex and Beckett.Not when Ryan was right in front of me, proving with every single thing that he did—even the imperfect things, like sharing my notes with Sam—that I meant something to him.That he cared about what mattered to me just because I did.That he was kind and generous and thoughtful, and the most perfect guy I’d ever met in my life.
When we’d finished eating, I took the plates to the kitchen and loaded them into the dishwasher.Then I returned to the living room, where Ryan was holding the little wooden alien I’d claimed as my muse.He wore a faint smile on his face as he studied it.
I sat at the end of the couch and said, “Come here.Put your head in my lap.”
Ryan gave me a dubious look but set the alien down on the coffee table and then shifted so he was lying on the couch with his head in my lap.
“There,” I said, carding my fingers through his hair.“I’ve been wanting to do this for ages.”
“What?Pet me like a dog?”
“Just for that, I won’t scratch you behind the ears,” I said, and he laughed softly.“You ever think it’s weird that you can have sex with a stranger, but you can’t cuddle with one or just stroke their hair?This is a relationship goal for me.Being so close and comfortable with you that I get to do this.”
He hummed, his eyes half closed.“It’s nice.”
It wasn’t just nice; it was perfect.It was everything I’d ever wanted.And, as I went back on my word and scratched behind Ryan’s ear and he smiled, I realized that the note I’d written him today wasn’t true.
Falling for Ryan?No, that moment was way past.
I’d fallen, and landed hard, and there was no place in the world I’d rather be than right here with him.
JUNE IN HARMONYLake was beautiful.Yellow bonnets dotted the grass around the cabin, and blue jays and cardinals brought flashes of bright color to the trees.During the day I wrote and sometimes took trips around the area for inspiration or just because the days were too nice to spend inside.I spent more time at the library too, discussing local history and lore with Ben.In the evenings, more often than not, we grilled and then ate on the porch or out by the fire pit, and I listened as Ryan talked tentatively about the progress he and Elena were making on the boat.He was clearly proud of what a good student she was, even while he was still struggling with feeling that he was somehow an inadequate teacher.
“I can’t even read a measuring tape,” he said one night, his mouth quirking in a rueful smile.“I mean, Ican, but chances are I’ll get the numbers the wrong way around.It’s why Rebecca helps me with all my lumber orders.”
