Page 45 of Love Notes
“I’m notafraid.”He raised his eyebrows.“Just, she’s going to give me so much shit for it, so I’m delaying the inevitable.”
“If it’s inevitable, there’s no point in delaying it.”
“Hard disagree.”
I laughed and leaned against him.“No, it’s fine.It gives me a chance to write that five-star review and fill it with innuendos about the quality of theserviceand repeated mentions of how comfortable androbustthe bed is.”
“Oh, I see it now,” Ryan muttered.“You want Rebecca to torture me.”
“Only a bit,” I teased.“For funsies.”
The cat stood up and stretched, her spine an arch.Then she leapt silently from her log and slunk off toward the cabin.
“We still haven’t named the cat,” I commented.
“We’ll do it when you get back,” Ryan said.
A happy ending wasn’t always fireworks.Sometimes it was a hundred different little things all clicking into place, those jigsaw puzzle pieces, and fitting neatly.And that was more than fine, because fireworks were here and gone again, leaving nothing behind but the smell of burned powder and afterimages burned into your vision when you blinked.A jigsaw, though?That was something you built slowly and carefully until at last it was complete and you were looking at the big picture together.
A happy ending was stars and the lakeside, a cat you hadn’t named yet, and the warm love of the kindest, strongest guy you’d ever met.A happy ending wasn’t even an ending at all, just the start of the best part—the ever after, in Harmony Lake, with Ryan.
And I couldn’t wait to wake up beside him every day for the rest of our lives.
“IT ISWAYtoo cold for this,” Adam grumbled for about the millionth time since we’d crawled out of bed, but he climbed out of the truck anyway and huddled there in his jacket.
I joined him and folded him into my arms.
He’d survived his first New Hampshire winter like a champion, only to fall into the trap of assuming that a few sunny days last week meant that warmer weather was here to stay.So he was treating this morning, which had dawned cloudy and wet and cold, as some sort of personal insult.He’d grumbled about it when we got up, when we had coffee, and even when he’d kissed me as he’d slipped a love note into the pocket of my shirt.I hadn’t read it yet, but I knew it would be written out carefully, the neatly-spaced, weighted letters copied from the printed out dyslexia-friendly font Adam had stuck next to his computer in his apartment, and tucked into a book at the cabin.It was a hell of a lot easier to read than his usual scrawl, and thinking about the amount of time it took him to write just a few simple lines made my heart swell.
“Come on,” I said, nodding toward the old sugar maple that marked the entrance to the trail that began by the covered bridge.“The guys are already here.”
Years and years ago, the four of us had started a tradition where on each of our birthdays we walked the trail.We’d start at the sugar maple, then follow the trail that curved through the woods past the bridge and then looped back to town.Rebecca liked to tease that we were getting up to mischief in the woods, but it was nothing like that.We just talked as we walked.
It wasn’t only the four of us today.Adam was here and so were Ben and Phillip and Dallas.Yeah, the fact that an actual rock star was joining us for my birthday walk was a trip.It was almost enough to make me forget how awkward it was to have Phillip there, because I’d just run with my first impression of that guy and had to uncomfortably reevaluate my opinion every time we’d met since.It didn’t help that he’d been so gracious about my being an asshole to him for so long.It would have been easier if I could still hate him instead of having to admit I’d been wrong about him.But I was working on it, and it helped that he made Haider so happy.Haider had always managed to light up whatever room he was in.Now he could light up entire buildings.
“Happy birthday, Paddy!”Sam called as Adam and I approached the group, and the others echoed the sentiment.
“We could have stayed in bed for birthday sex,” Adam muttered into his scarf.
I tapped him gently on the ass.“Already had that.”
“We could have had more,” he said, but he was fighting a smile, and I knew his grumbling was mostly for show.
We reached the guys, and I accepted a bunch of hugs and handshakes and, from Haider, a bag of my favorite malted milk balls.
Then we set out on our walk, Adam’s fingers linked with mine.
Weird how everything turned out.Only last year we were all single, and Haider and I were wondering if Sam and Conor would really go through with the ridiculous deal they’d made to get married if they couldn’t find anyone else.Not that the deal had pushed them toward the first guys they met or anything.You only had to look at Ben to see that he was perfect for Sam, and Dallas and Conor?Okay, it would probably never not be weird that the guy was famous, but they seemed perfectly matched as well.I’d once told Adam that fate got it right when it brought me to Caldwell Crossing, and it had gotten it right again for me and my best friends when it had sent our partners here so that we could find each other.
We talked as we walked, about chapters and chocolates, sap lines and songwriting, fire breaks and furniture making.Haider made sure we were all aware of when we had to be at the Lakeside Inn tonight for my party.
“Seven, I know,” I said.“I won’t be late.”
I still was late to most things if I got caught up working and lost track of time.But I’d set an alarm on my phone for tonight, and besides, Adam would make sure I didn’t miss my own party.Rebecca and Chris were going to try to make it too; they’d been a little less social recently, because morning sickness was kicking Rebecca’s ass, but she usually felt better at night than during the day, so I hoped they’d come by.So much for their rental cottage plan though.As soon as they’d found out she was pregnant, they’d decided the apartment wouldn’t fit a baby, so they were moving into the cottage.They weren’t the only ones changing their address.Adam’s lease was due to expire soon, so next weekend he was finally moving in with me.I’d volunteered the guys to help as well, since between the bunch of us it wouldn’t take too long to get everything shifted out to the cabin.
“When it comes to moving, I’m more of a supervisor than a lifter,” Haider was saying to Adam as we rounded a gentle bend.“Oh, and I can pick up the pizzas.But I prefer to leave the lifting to Conor.Have you seen his muscles?”
Conor grinned at him and flexed his guns, and Dallas burst out laughing.
