My hands tremble as I pull my phone out of my back pocket, and even though my heart beats in my throat, I feel sure in a way I haven’t felt in a long time.
I scroll through my contacts and click on my landlord’s number, my heart beating in time with the rings. When he answers, I say, “I want to rent the empty shop next door.”
I’m practically buzzing with my news when Grey walks into the shop hours later. My heart stutters when I see him. He’s wearing jeans, even though it’s sweltering outside, and a white T-shirt so thin it looks like it could rip with the slightest tug. He’s smiling, eyes bright, and in his hands is a bouquet of poppies. Blue and red poppies, wrapped in newspaper.
I can actually feel my heart catch in my throat, my skin heat up under the soft perusal of his eyes. A flutter starts deep in my stomach, butterflies taking flight from their chrysalis for the first time.
“You brought flowers for me,” I say, my voice barely more articulate than a breath. “No one ever gets me flowers.”
His smile stretches. “Well, that’s a damn shame. You deserve all the flowers. Oh, and I forgot.” He pulls a worn mass marketpaperback out of his back pocket, moves forward to place it on the counter between us. “For your bookshop. One day.”
Warmth spreads through me, lighting me up from the inside out, and I truly have no words except to say, “Thank you, Grey.” Then, after shaking myself from his hypnotizing gaze, “Where did you get the flowers? And the book?”
A stunning blush creeps into his cheeks, and I desperately want to press my lips to them, feel his warmth against my mouth, memorize how it feels to know I put it there. “Your mom’s garden. And I found the book at a garage sale.”
I take the flowers, burying my nose in them, breathing in their familiar sweet, earthy smell. With my other hand, I finger the worn edges of the book, running my fingertips over the cracked spine. It’s a bodice ripper, the couple on the front locked in an intimate, passionate embrace. It’s a book I’ll read before putting in my bookshop, where it will wait for some lucky person to buy it and find as much enjoyment in it as I did. Or maybe since this one is fromhim, I’ll keep it. Put it on a shelf in my tiny apartment and never put it in the shop. Pull it out time and again to reread, thinking of the way I feel right now, basking in the glow of his attention.
The book reminds me of the news I have for him, and a smile breaks out across my face. “I called the landlord today.”
Grey’s grin mirrors my own, excitement and pride reflected back at me. “And?”
A deep breath releases from my lungs, lifting my chest and dropping it back down. I can feel the nerves racing just under my skin, but beneath it is something else, something deeper. Anticipation. “I told him I wanted it.”
He lets out a whoop, coming around the counter to pick me up, swinging me around in the tight space between the wall and counter. My feet catch on cardboard boxes beneath it, dragging them out onto the ground. And suddenly, he’s tripping, holdingme with one arm, trying to catch us against the wall with the other. We go down anyway, landing in a heap on the floor. He lets out a grunt as he flattens a cardboard box beneath his back and I land on top of him, his arm still banded tightly around my waist.
It only takes a moment for us to recalibrate, to take a deep breath and assess ourselves for injuries, before we realize we’re okay and begin laughing. The deep kind that feels like it’s being pulled out of our depths. I relish in the feeling of his body spasming beneath mine, his head gently hitting the floor, mine coming down to rest in the crook of his neck, his collarbone heaving beneath me, bumping up against my nose with every peal of deep laughter.
There are tears in my eyes when I pull back, out of breath but happier than I can ever remember being. I lay over top of Grey like this in his bed, telling him that waking up with me was real, that it wasn’t one of his dreams, and I feel the need to tell him that now, to remind myself as much as him.
So I say, “This is real,” and watch as his laughter vanishes and is replaced by a different kind of smile. There’s not a trace of humor in this one, but it’s just as happy. This is a smile of contentment, and I realize it’s the only kind of smile I’ve never seen on his face before.
I’ve never felt more lucky than I do now, knowing I’m the one who put that specific smile there.
“Where are we going?” I ask for probably the fifth time since I got in the passenger side of Grey’s truck and he pulled onto the highway. I expected us to go somewhere in town, or maybe down the road to one of the bigger suburbs. But we’ve beendriving for close to three hours now, through small, sparsely populated towns into identical suburbs, and now turning into large highways, taller buildings, traffic.
“Charlotte,” he says. Again.
“I know that.”
His gaze cuts over to me for a moment before returning to the road, the line of glowing red taillights in front of us. “Then why are you asking again?”
“Because you still haven’t given me a better answer.”
“You’ll like it.”
“You already said that.”
A grin quirks his lips. “We’re back to square one.”
I let out an aggrieved sigh, knowing I’m not getting anywhere with him. Instead, I let my eyes focus on the surroundings outside the truck. Gleaming buildings reflecting the sun, a river cutting through the city, people lining the streets.
“Would you ever want to live here? Or another city?” I ask him, pulling my gaze back into the car, to his profile, lit up by the bright vermillion sun arcing toward the horizon.
He seems to think about it for a minute before shaking his head. “I used to think I wanted to leave town. Move away from my family. I thought it might be easier, that our relationship might be better if we weren’t in the same place.” He presses the brakes, stopping behind the line of traffic, and focuses on me. “Now I know there’s nowhere else I want to be.”
My heart beats so hard I wonder if he can see it in the pulse at my throat.
“What about you?” he asks, wrist propped on the steering wheel, curved over it in an effortless kind of way.
