Page 114 of A Guy Walks Into My Bar
If hot, hard, hungry sex with my husband is a punishment, then I’ll be bad every day.
And in our hotel room, we’re so bad that it’s damn good as we enjoy the scenery so very much, exactly as I told him we would.
Later that night, when we head out to dinner at a swank new eatery Naveen raved about, Fitz drapes an arm around me, as a couple of guys walk past us, looking our way. “They want what we have,” he says, all confident, as he often is.
“Yeah? What’s that? Reservations at a hard-to-get-into restaurant? It did take me some finagling to snag it.”
He stops, cups my cheeks, and looks me in the eyes. He goes serious. Intensely so. “Do you have any idea how fucking amazing it is to know that one person can be everything to you?”
My heart thumps harder. I match his tone when I answer. “I do.”
“It’s incredible that one person can be it for you. Can be your great and fantastic love.”
And the organ beats louder, only for him. My voice softens to a whisper as I look at the man I love. “I know what you mean. I have mine, and it is fucking amazing to be with you.”
“Same, babe. It’s the same for me.”
We continue on, walking down the street, wrapped up in each other.
This is happiness, and I’ve got it.
We’ve got it in each other.
The next summer we go to Italy. We have more to celebrate. Not just a one-year anniversary.
But a Stanley Cup.
Fitz is still pretty over the moon about winning it. Understandable. Though he said his favorite part was when I wore his jersey to the winning game.
Not true.
I didn’t. I just wore a team jersey.
But he has an active imagination, and he pretends I wore his number. I let him have this fantasy. I let him have all his fantasies.
Since most of his mirror mine.
The following summer, we go back to England for a few weeks, then to Prague and Amsterdam.
It’s everything we once imagined it would be.
And when we return to New York, the next season starts. He’s busy again, and so am I.
But we text and talk, and I video chat him the morning he turns thirty, since he’s in Toronto for the last game in a long road trip.
He stretches in his hotel bed. “I’m so sad I can’t have a birthday morning BJ.”
“I’m devastated too. I can’t think of a better present to give you.” But, in fact, I have other gifts for him.
When he returns the next night, while I’m at The Pub, he’ll find it on the kitchen counter.
A note that says: Remember that time you walked into my bar? You said some things were hard to resist. You said, too, that you’d show me if I told you what time I got off. Tonight, I get off at one. I’ll show you what’s hard to resist, after I make you a martini that goes to your head. Pros of being married to a bar owner.
But first, Leo arrives at The Pub in the early evening. We chat for a few minutes, as he tells me all about what went down when Lulu showed up at some sort of chocolate event, and then he helped her get a job at his company.
“Level with me. Are you prepared to work with her?” I ask my friend.
“She’s a contractor. We’re not going to be in the same offices.”
“You completely dodged the question,” I point out, since things are different now with her. Well, they could be different, since his friend Tripp died a few years ago, shortly after I became friends with Leo.
“It’ll be fine. We’re friends,” Leo says of Lulu. “We’ve been through plenty, as you know. And plenty of people who have history work together.”
Laughing, I slap my palm on the bar. “That is the best understatement among all the understatements in contention for Understatement of the Century.”
Leo grins, shrugging. “Who doesn’t have history?”
“You two have so much history you could write a new textbook.” But then I stop the ribbing. “Listen, all I’m saying is, once upon a time, you were in love with her. Now all you have to do is keep it on the level as you work with her. It ought to be easy, right?”
“Piece of cake.”
But when Lulu strolls in, and Leo gives her a look like she’s the answer to all his prayers, I have a feeling he’s going to be back here in a few days, needing a much stronger drink.
And I’ll be here when he needs me.
Later, after I close the bar and clean up, there’s a knock.
My reaction is Pavlovian. My skin heats up. My dick starts to harden as I walk to the door.
Blue eyes, hot as sin, greet me as I open it.
