Page 66 of A Lot Like Lavender
“Yellow doesn’t belong in a bedroom, Sweetheart.” Though the way she looks in this dress might just be changing my mind.
“We’ll see.” She smiles, and I’m pretty sure I’ve already lost that argument. “The point is, from now on, I want to make breakfast with you every morning because we’re doing life together, not because you feel like you have to earn something or because you think James would want you to. I want you. Molly wants you. That’s enough.”
“I can’t believe we ended up here,” I say, marveling at the woman smiling back at me. “I can’t believe I get to love you.”
Pressing her back into the side of the house, I cage her in and show her how amazed I truly am. How I plan to show her every day, and I don’t plan to waste a single one.
“No more secrets,” she insists, breathless. “Balloons on roadkill. Aiding and abetting minors. Buying land. Building a business. Whatever it is, I want to do it together.”
“Deal.” We turn towards the party and the crowd of restless ten-year-olds, sweating senselessly and filled to the brim with more sugar than medically recommended. “So, would now be a good time to tell you that I have a meeting with a contractor next week?”
“For your house?”
“No. Foryourcabins. On the east land. Purple Pastures and Alpaca, a family owned and operated micro-resort.”
“You’re insane.” She laughs, wrapping her arm around my waist and pulling me towards the pasture where some of the alpacas have caught sight of her and are trotting past kids to reach her—just as entranced by Emory as the rest of us. “But where will you live if not the property you so aggressively stole from Trey?”
“Not sure. MaybeAsscroft has a spare room I could rent out.”
She shrugs. “We’ve got a decent couch here if you’re interested. I’ve heard it’s really comfortable. Comes with matching jammies and movie nights. But it’ll cost ya.”
“Name your price, Red.” I’ll pay.
She kisses me again, smiling against my lips. “Brownies.”
20
FIRST LOVE
MCKENZIE PORTER & JAKE ETHERIDGE, THELMA & JAMES
EMORY
I'm marrying Jordan Love today.
It's the first and primary thought I have when I open my eyes to a freshly painted, buttercup yellow ceiling, framed with the wooden rafters Jordan installed last week. It’s warm and cozy, and when I look up every morning, I think of daisies in summertime and bright sunshine after days of rain.
Dr. Love was adamant that yellow could not go on the walls of our bedroom, but he sure changed his tune when Molly lost her mind over this particular shade of yellow, what she callsPrincess Buttercup Yellow, of course.
But I think it was me offering to wear a certain yellow sundress to the party today that really sealed the deal.
The rest of the walls are a shade of ivory calledHopeful Beginnings,which feels like a really good mood to surround ourselves with. Even if my fiancé did make a fine case for one calledSexy Silkwhen we were debating on colorpalettes.
The second, equally prominent thought filling my mind is,I smell brownies.They’re most assuredly the breakfast brownies Jordan bakes once a week. The very same brownies that he hides veggies inside of so Molly and I eat a more balanced diet, becausehe loves us so much and we eat like trash pandas. It’s what I do for the animals when I need to sneak medicine into their food. So I know he cares.
Molly’s snoring lightly, snuggled up between Dinah and me, and obviously still exhausted from my wild bachelorette party. We stuffed ourselves with fried mozzarella sticks, pretzel bites, and ice cream sundaes and introduced Molly to one of our mom's favorite romcoms.
Spoiler alert. Kate Hudson starred, and of course, there was a happy ending.
But I still wouldn’t call myself a romance convert yet, and I’m definitely not itching to get my official H3B2 membership card anytime soon. Because eight-foot-tall MMCs and tropes and pirates who fall for viking princesses—that’s all fiction. It’s fun to read, if you’re into that sort of thing, but this is real life.
It’s ugly, sometimes, and hard, yet still, somehow, so much sweeter.
If you’d asked me ten years ago if I’d ever get married again, I would have laughed in your face, then retreated to my bathroom for a good, long, shower cry. If you’d have said I’d be walking down a matrimonial aisle towards my husband’s best friend, I would have slapped somebody silly. Probably the man in question.
It’s funny what looking in the rearview mirror does when you’ve finally made it down the road you were convinced would never end. Sometimes, I’d get lost in that view. Wondering how that newly widowed girl would havedone things differently, where she would be if she had, and who she’d be with now.
But who’s to say if any of those options would have led me to the man currently standing shirtless in my kitchen, cradling a duckling to his bare chest, pouring coffee into my favorite mug, and gazing at me like he’s the lucky one. Not me.
