Matchmaking Mischief bonus story!
If you haven’t read Matchmaking Mischief, there will be spoilers! Read Matchmaking Mischief first!
Alex
My mind is buried in the story I’m telling. I’m closing in on the end, so close I can almost taste it, and it tastes like sunshine.
It’ll end with just a hint of romance, because Willow’s encouraged me to go for a slow-burn, will-they-or-won’t-they kind of deal. She says that’s the sort of romance mystery readers prefer, subtle rather than hit-you-in-the-head obvious. I suppose she has more of a pulse on those things than I do, so I believe her.
Hell, I’d probably do it anyway, just to make her happy.
Anyway, I’m out for a run, and my mind is on the final scene between my main character, the matchmaker, and the detective she helped with his case. I’m on the cusp of figuring out which words should flow from their mouths when suddenly a tall, skinny man steps out of the alley in front of me, smack in the middle of my path.
“You’ve got to help me, man,” he gushes.
Well, shit.
It’s Blake, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, although thankfully not the T-shirt he had on the last time I saw him, at the craft fair where he made a fool of himself. I was kind of hoping that would be the last time I’d ever see him. He’d stopped coming into the bakery, which is good, because if not, I would have needed to give him a talking-to. Yet here he is, coming at me like we’re two bros who lost track of each other at a cocktail party, not two people who have purposefully avoided having any contact.
I’ve got enough momentum going that I nearly barrel into him. Eyes flying wide, he lifts his hands in the universal gesture of “don’t hit me,” as if he weren’t the one who’d stepped out of an alley in front of me.
I’m tempted to knock into him and keep running–it would certainly be less aggravating than talking to him–but that’s not a very Team Sunshine thought, and I’ve been lagging on the sunshine front lately. Willow made free sunshine lattes for a few sad sacks at the bakery yesterday, complete with a sun design in the foam she learned how to do by watching YouTube videos. Nicole made two mansplainers cry. Harry spent an hour talking to an old lady who would have, if not for his advice, given her social security number to hackers claiming they possessed nude photos of her. Moreover, he exercised great restraint in not commenting once on the fact that there are clearly nude photos of her out there somewhere. And that’s not even considering the sunshine deeds of everyone else who has joined Team Sunshine, from Lou to my parents.
I can use some sunshine points, is what I’m saying. Willow always reminds me it’s not a competition, but that’s Willow for you.
Staggering to a stop a distressingly close to Blake, I plant my hands on my knees and lean forward to catch air. That’s when it hits me. This is nearly the same pose I struck that very first day, outside of the window of Bear’s Buns. Sherry looked out at me, which pissed off Blake, whose ego is apparently as fragile as an eggshell, and the rest is history. It makes me feel nostalgic in a weird way, especially since today is important for us. For Willow and me, that is. Not me and Blake. I would prefer not to exist in the same sentence as him, unless it’s something like, “Alex never saw Blake again.”
“What do you want, Blake?” I huff out between ragged breaths. “I have to be honest, I don’t feel inclined to help you. You’re the kind of guy who causes his own problems.”
His attempts to romance Sherry after the window incident included negging her, reading her (verbatim) a love note I’d written about Willow, and making a grand gesture that included singing and dancing to “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy” and inviting her to the Golden Corral. Oh, and negging her some more.
So you can see why I’m not inclined to make him my next Team Sunshine project. Team Sunshine is about paying it forward, true, but helping Blake seems to have the unfortunate side effect of making life worse for other people. Sherry. Me. Willow. Admittedly, anyone who witnessed the aforementioned scenes got plenty of enjoyment out of it, and all of the Blake/Sherry drama did end in Sherry meeting a six-foot-five master craftsman.
“I realize that I fucked everything up with Sherry.”
“If this is about Sherry, you can forget it right now,” I say. “Her boyfriend could bench press you. I think he probably would, too, if you try to talk to her again.”
He makes a face. “No, I’m over Sherry. We were never a good fit.”
“Well, I agree with you there,” I mutter. I start walking in the direction of Bear’s Buns, where I’m supposed to meet Willow and her siblings, who are spending the weekend with us. After a moment’s hesitation, Blake follows.
“Are we going to Bear’s Buns?” he asks.
“I am, yes,” I say.
He has the face of a kid who just got pinched. “Is Willow still mad at me?”
“You say that as if the two of you have a long-lasting friendship,” I say. “I don’t think she’s mad at you so much as unmoved by the fact that you continue to exist.”
“That’s good, then,” says Blake, revealing an almost admirable knack for missing the point. “I want to be on her good side.”
“What’s this about?” I grunt after a moment of silence.
“Well, there’s this other woman,” he says, and I sigh, because of course this is about a woman. I wish he wanted help with his flinch reflex or editing a cover letter or anything that I could help him with that wasn’t doomed by a dismal success rate.
“I’ll stop you right there,” I say, pausing on the sidewalk and stepping to the side. Unfortunately, he steps with me. “I don’t want anything to do with that. You need writing help or the name of a good therapist, I got your back, but that’s where my wiliness to help ends.”
Blunt but effective.
Or at least it should have been. “I get that, dude,” he says in the way of someone who doesn’t. “Like I said, I’ll cop to fucking the Sherry thing up. But I’ve grown.”
“It’s only been a couple of months.”
“Love changes a man.”
I don’t try to hide my eyeroll. I mean, he’s not wrong. Love does change a man…it changed me. But judging by Blake’s action–and inaction–in the Sherry debacle, I wouldn’t be shocked if this guy hasn’t even said a single word to the woman he supposedly loves.
“Hear me out,” he says. “And then you’ll see why you have to help me.”
I can’t deny I’m curious, so I lift my eyebrows and gesture for him to go on.
“The first time I saw her was at your grand gesture.” Grinning, he holds a hand up to me. “Good going, by the way. It would have been much harder for her to turn you down in front of all those people.”
He’s talking about my grand gesture for Willow, which got a little out of hand. Of course, that’s what happens when you let Bear Reynolds and Dottie Hendrickson do favors for you. The thing you asked for ends up being about ninety percent louder, bigger, and better observed than you had planned. Which is how my plan to make an ass out of myself in front of Willow and maybe half a dozen to a dozen of our nearest and dearest ended with me making an ass out of myself in front of half of Asheville, with a band randomly showing up to properly make an occasion of it. Hell, someone even gave donkey rides.
Then again, there’s no denying Bear and Dottie get results.
I’m a little worried about what they might have planned for tonight, actually.
Blake’s still waving his hand expectantly, presumably waiting for a high five he’s never going to get.
“I didn’t know you were there,” I say. “And I didn’t do it publicly because I thought it would make it harder for her to turn me down. I did it that way because I wanted to prove I’d do anything for her…even make an ass of myself in public.”
Blake swallows and lowers his hand. “That didn’t work out so well for me.”
“That’s because you are an ass, not just in public.”
He gives a shrug. “I’ve changed.”
“So you keep saying.” Despite myself, I ask, “And who caught your eye at my grand gesture?”
Half the town was there, it felt like, so I doubt it’ll be anyone I know well. Maybe Josie from the tea shop caught his eye. They might actually be a good fit–Josie’s just oblivious enough that Blake’s dumbass comments might go straight over her head. Or…could it be Nicole he fancies?
The thought’s laughable, because even if she weren’t married to a man who could bench press Blake and bug his house, she’d make mincemeat of him.
He glances around, as if worried someone might hear his answer. “Willow’s sister,” he says in a lowered voice.
I flinch as if he slapped me. “Which one?”
Except now that I think about it, Bryn was the only one who made a showing at the grand gesture. Holly lives in New York, and Ivy’s off in Charleston. They couldn’t make it, although Nicole filmed the whole thing, so all of the Mayberrys have seen it. Ivy even posted it for her fifteen thousand followers on Facebook. (Thanks a lot, Ivy.)
“The one with the long dark hair,” he says with a grin on his face.
“Wait a second. You don’t even know her name?”
“I know plenty of other things about her.”
I feel myself bristle at the insinuation in his tone. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
He has a satisfied look I’m tempted to punch off his face. Maybe I would have if we weren’t standing on the sidewalk in front of several onlookers who have probably already seen the video of my grand gesture and/or the one of me being confronted by my shitty mother at the bookstore. “It means we made out for an hour in the sleigh after everyone else went inside.”
Could this dipshit really be talking about Bryn? I do remember her drinking some of the punch Dottie brought, which was much more alcoholic than it tasted, but could any amount of alcohol have made Blake appealing?
Then again, Willow originally thought he was a good match for Sherry, and Sherry herself wasn’t inclined to disagree until she got to know the guy. Still, making out with this dude for an hour in a sleigh wrapped in Easter paper in her sister’s front lawn would have to be a low for Bryn.
I’ve been wondering if Bryn’s all right for a while now, ever since we had a talk at Tea of Fortune #2’s opening, and this seems to confirm she’s struggling. I mean, it would be worse if she’d made out with Blake while completely sober, but even so.
Maybe it’s time for another sit-down chat since Bryn is here and all. Or I can talk to Willow, who can in turn talk to her sister.
Yes, I like that idea better.
“Um. Okay,” I say. “I guess everyone makes mistakes.”
“Oh, it was no mistake,” he says, obviously misinterpreting my words. “I’m in love with her.”
“No,” I say. “No, you’re not.”
“Well, I saw her again this morning, and she looks even better than she did that night.”
Probably because she wasn’t sloppy drunk this time.
“Look,” I say. “I don’t want to be rude…” I shift, standing up straighter. “Actually, I do want to be rude. You are not in love with Bryn. Bryn is not in love with you. I think it would be best if you didn’t come to the coffee shop this morning, because Bryn will be there with Willow’s brother, Rowan, and he might not be happy if you come barging in talking about making out in Easter sleds, got it? Trust me when I say he is very protective of his sisters. He’s also a fireman who could easily beat you into the ground.”
“Huh,” Blake says, scuffing the ground with his shoe. “You might have a point.” He brightens. “It would be much better to talk to her when he’s not around, in a situation like last time, where there are lots of possible distractions.” Beaming, he goes to clap me on the back, thinks better of it, and takes a step back. “Thanks, man. I’ll see you later.”
He takes off, whistling, and I’m left with a feeling of foreboding.
Fuck, he doesn’t know about our housewarming party, does he? Bear did make some of the arrangements, and God knows that he likes to talk…
I need to warn Willow…and Bryn.
* * *
About a month ago, Bear and Dottie announced they were moving in together, into Dottie’s tiny bungalow in town. Both of them are social to a fault, if you ask me, and that’s where they preferred to live. Which meant Bear would be selling his cabin in the mountains. I wanted it, obviously, but I didn’t want to live there alone. So I brought Willow and gave her a very lengthy tour she must have found confusing given she’d been there multiple times. She stopped me in front of the linen closet on the second floor, which I’d opened to show her the built in hamper, and asked me what the hell I was doing. Okay, she didn’t say it like that. She asked nicely.
And I asked her if she could see making it our home.
Her answer was to take off my pants. I took the hallway sex as a yes, and she confirmed as much when we were both lying on our backs, staring at the ceiling, talking about what this or that room would be and where we’d put her turtledoves. (Above the fireplace, in a place of honor. Sure, Oliver gave her them, but I like Oliver, and she told me a while back that she sees them as us now.)
But then she got a worried look on her face. “What about Harry?”
“Well, he’ll come with us, obviously.” Because, in a way, it was obvious. I’d become fond of Harry, and we couldn’t leave him by himself in that crappy rental, at the mercy of the kind of people who answer personal ads.
A look of wonder lit in her eyes, and she kissed me, and that was that.
Although Harry immediately became stressed over the prospect of moving, he couldn’t deny Bear’s spacious house was a much better fit for the three of us than the cramped bungalow he and Willow had been living in. Besides, he was plenty familiar with it, having attended Bad Luck Club meetings for so long.
Actually, in what can only be described as a fit of lunacy, I’d told Bear he could still hold the meetings at the cabin, every other Sunday, since Dottie’s house was so constricted on space. According to Molly, that had never stopped Dottie from having the kind of parties that would give fire marshals a nightmare, but Bear accepted…on the condition that I come to them.
So I have been.
And although I’m still mildly fucked-up in the way of people who had weird experiences in childhood, it feels like a completely livable amount of fucked-up these days.
Everything is good. Scary good, almost. The cabin feels like a home already, filled with little Willow touches that shouldn’t be as adorable as they are, like the little floating shelves full of tchotchke crap and her complete signed library of her sister Ivy’s books, which we love to mine for roleplay ideas. Then there’s Edward, Harry’s turtle, and all of Harry’s various computer-related paraphernalia, which he keeps in a back office on the first floor. I work mostly out on the deck, because I do like the view, but there are comfortable writing spots scattered throughout the house. And an equal number of places where Willow and I can have sex without scarring Harry’s psyche.
I’m happy.
Which is why I’m not eager to get drawn back into Blake’s shit.
Sighing, I make my way to the bakery and let myself in. Kate gives me a wave from behind the counter and signals to Willow, sitting at a table in the back with her sister and brother and…fuck…Darlene and Nadine are sitting next to them, cooing over something Rowan just said.
Good. Maybe they’re planning to write their next bit of erotica about firemen. Their first, inspired by Willow and me, attracted a small following for them, and they hit the ground running. The less I hear about it, the better, although I’ve forgiven them for their role in the mess with Rachel. They had no way of knowing my bio mother was lying.
Willow looks up as I approach, and that dimple winks at me. I feel the punch of it in my gut. It still fills me with wonder that she took me back, no recriminations or guilt trips. I’m beyond grateful that she’s mine, and I’m hers.
Everyone greets me, then Bryn looks back at her phone, frowning, and I turn to Willow.
“Hey, can I steal you away for a second?” I ask.
“You’re going to be right back, right?” Rowan asks, looking alarmed.
“I mean, it’ll be longer than a second,” I admit.
“We were just asking Rowan here how fast he can take off his uniform,” Darlene gushes. “You know how important it is to do research before you write something, Alex.”
“Well, we’ll leave you to it,” I say, giving Rowan a wicked look I’ll probably pay for later.
Willow laughs as I tug her around the corner and guide us to a stop in front of the back door. “He looks like he did the first time Ivy and I put on Pride & Prejudice,” she says.
“Is that the way I look whenever Darlene and Nadine corner me?”
She gives me an assessing look, her eyes dancing with amusement. “Yes, you do get a certain look when they corner you.”
“But not you,” I say, pulling her close for a quick kiss. “You can corner me whenever you want.”
“Is that what we’re doing now?”
Damn, I wish I could tell her yes, because what I actually have to say next is almost certainly going to kill the mood.
Still, it needs saying, so I sigh and blurt out, “I saw Blake. Turns out he and your sister made out after our grand gesture, and now he thinks he’s in love with her. He may or may not plan on crashing our housewarming party tonight. Thoughts?”
* * *
Willow
“No,” I say, because what Alex just told me defies belief. “No way. He’s not her type at all. She goes for sporty guys. Guys who like to hike.”
Alex sputters a laugh and pushes the bridge of his glasses up. “You think Blake would die if he went on a hike? You know, you might have a point.”
I give his arm a little shove, enjoying the solid feel of it under my fingers even now, in crisis mode. “This is no laughing matter, Alex. Bryn’s going through something. It’s–”
“It’s not a quarter-life crisis,” my sister says wryly, stepping into the back hallway. There’s emotion flashing through her blue eyes, but I can’t decide whether it’s annoyance or something else. “I’m a decade too old for that. Were you planning on having sex in the bathroom, or can I go pee?”
“Bryn,” I say, giving Alex a look. This should probably be a just-sisters conversation, even though I’m not exactly looking forward to it. For someone who spends her life setting up other people, Bryn doesn’t enjoy discussing her love life. Or, really, her emotions about anything. Maybe she used to do that with Holly, her twin, before Holly left for New York, but she’s always taken a big sister role with me, Rowan, and Ivy. Which means we knew about Matt, her long-term ex-boyfriend, but not much else.
Matt is nothing like Blake. The only thing they have in common is that they’re both a little full of themselves.
“I’m going to go save Rowan,” Alex says, which makes me love him even more. Although he has a certain begrudging tolerance for Nadine and Darlene, he doesn’t like to be stuck in a conversation with them. He’ll do drastic things to avoid it. One time, he actually climbed out of a window.
Alex kisses the corner of my jaw, where my dimple pops out, and whispers, “Good luck, Aslan.”
“What’s this all about?” Bryn asks as soon as we’re alone.
“Are you seeing anyone?”
“What?!” She sounds understandably confused.
I play with my necklace, a golden sun on a long chain that Alex chose for me. “It’s just…this guy we know, who’s a bit of a…well…not a gentleman, he says you made out with him after Alex’s grand gesture. And Alex just bumped into him before he came here, and it sounds like there’s a chance he’s going to crash our party tonight. I thought I should let you know.”
Bryn suddenly looks like she’s going to be sick.
“Oh, shit,” she says, tugging on a lock of her hair. “I’d forgotten about that.”
“You forgot?” I ask, lifting my brows. “He says he’s in love with you.”
“What?!” she squawks.
The last thing we need is for more people to join us back here, so I press my finger to my lips.
“What?” she squawks more quietly. “Matt had just gotten married. I figured I needed a distraction. And you know it’s not easy for me to mess around with people who live too close to Highland Hills.”
I did know that. I’d experienced a taste of it myself. We were the Mayberry Matchmakers, which made people feel like they knew more about us than they did. Our role intrigued some men, like the one guy I’d gone a on a date with who’d asked me every five minutes how he was doing, and it frightened others off. The ones who ran scared seemed to think we were interested in one thing: marriage. And given Bryn just got out of a long relationship, which ended with her boyfriend promising to marry someone else, I doubted finding Mr. Right was on her mind right now.
But I didn’t know. Again, this was the kind of thing Bryn would usually tell Holly. The only thing I did know was that she’d wanted to marry Matt. I wasn’t totally sure what had happened, but they’d broken up, and he’d proposed to someone else quickly thereafter.
“Did it?” I ask softly. “Make you feel better, I mean.”
“No, absolutely not. He was weird and kind of clingy.”
“Hence him being in love with you.”
She makes a face. “If I’ve learned anything from fourteen years of matchmaking, it’s that at least eighty-five percent of men equate sex with love.”
“You had sex with him?” I say, much too loudly.
“No, of course not.” She scowls. “I might be struggling a little but not to the point of having sex with a stranger in an Easter sleigh in my sister’s front yard.”
“Well, that’s a relief,” I say.
She laughs, her face transforming with it, and says, “You sounded like Alex just now. You two are rubbing off on each other. I mean, he made us pancakes this morning. They were terrible, mind you, but the offer was nice.”
“You never would have matched us together,” I say.
“I don’t know,” she says, giving me a soft smile. “There’s something in the way you look at each other.”
“You don’t know that we’ve always looked at each other like that.”
She smiles. “Rowan told me all about his first dinner with you.”
“Oh God,” I groan. “I’ll bet he did.”
She holds out a hand. “Let’s call it even. You know about my…ahem…indiscretion in the Easter sleigh, and I know about Rowan finding your condom stash.” I shake hands with her, and she adds, “But I’m going to beg Rowan and Alex to keep that guy away from me tonight. I seriously can’t be held responsible for my actions if they don’t.”
“We’ll make it a Team Sunshine mission,” I say with a firm nod.
She knows all about Team Sunshine, so she just smiles. “You know, I’m happy you found someone to look at like that, Will. You deserve to be happy.”
So does she, and I feel a twist in my gut, because I want to make that happen for her…and I don’t have the first idea how.
* * *
“Let me get this straight,” Nicole says. “How much force are we allowed to use on this Blake dude if he comes near Bryn? Like, do you want Damien to tackle him?”
“I don’t need to tackle him,” Damien says, wrapping an arm around her back. “I’ll just throw something at him and make it look like an accident.”
She leans in and kisses him, her eyes sparkling, and I’m left momentarily speechless.
We’re gathered in the kitchen of the cabin, grabbing some more food to take outside, where we’ve set up some long tables, a keg of Buchanan beer and, of course, several different varieties of tea. Although Dottie swears she didn’t explicitly invite her, Josie has also set up a fortune-telling stand outside. I told Alex it’s kind of charming and kitsch. He grunted in a way that suggested he disagreed but let it go.
It’s going to be a big group, although thankfully Alex already knew that Bear and Dottie would invite approximately thirty more people than they said he would.
“Or we could try to herd him away from her,” Harry suggests. “You know, like a sheep dog would.”
“I like that idea better,” I say. “Blake’s not terrible, he’s just misguided.”
“Oh, Willow,” Tina says, hip-checking me. “The world is not going to end if you admit someone is terrible.”
“No, it’ll only start its inevitable decline into anarchy,” Zach finishes for her.
“You don’t think it’s anarchic yet? Haven’t you looked out the window?” Alex asks, slipping past him to reach for a tray of–
No, he reaches for me, pulling me to him like I’m his safety blanket. He leans down to kiss me, and I lift on my tiptoes to kiss him back, and our friends instantly find something else to do, as if this whole evening is a choreographed dance, and they all know their parts. Hopefully they remember the bit about keeping Blake away.
Alex deepens the kiss, awakening my body’s need for his touch, his kisses, and the way he can practically talk me into an orgasm. Then he breaks away slightly, looking at me with gleaming eyes. “You know, the first time we kissed was in a kitchen.”
“I was there too,” I say. It occurs to me it’s what Bryn would call an Alex comment, and I like this added evidence that we’re rubbing off on each other, both of us giving and taking.
“I talked to a few people outside about the Blake situation,” he says. “Bear promised to talk his ear off if he comes across him, and you know he means it.”
We both laugh a little at that, since it’s kind of a funny image, Bear sitting Blake down and talking to him until he either falls asleep or gives up.
“And it sounds like Dottie wants to have a long talk with him about appropriate ways to pursue women. I told her it wouldn’t do any good, but–” He shrugs. “It’s Dottie. If anyone can My Fair Lady Him into a decent person, it’s her.”
“I’m encouraged to hear you say that,” I say excitedly. “Maybe she could actually help him.”
“Don’t get your hopes up too much.” He grins. “It still won’t work, but she has a better shot than we did.”
“Are you ready for this?” I ask.
His parents and Lou are here, and Rowan and Bryn and Oliver, and obviously the whole Team Sunshine contingent, which has grown by leaps and bounds and now includes Molly and Cal and Molly’s sisters and their partners. Their children have come too, and Cal even set up a little play area for them out back. Bear shut down the bakery for the afternoon so Kate could come, and the tea room is shut down too. To be honest, there’s also an eighty percent chance that Nadine and Darlene are out there, because I might have slipped the news about the party to them.
I know it’s going to be a lot for him. He’ll love it, but he’ll hate it too.
“I am,” Alex says, “but there’s something I wanted to talk to you about first.” He looks almost…nervous…the way he did when he was sitting in that sleigh, watching the world go insane around him. And then all the air escapes me in a gasp because he’s lowering to one knee.
“Alex…”
“Willow,” he says with a slight smile. “Willow Diane Mayberry, you are the light of my life. Every day, you make me want to be a better man, if only so I can earn a flash of your dimple. You’re my muse, my lover, my best friend, and I want to spend the rest of my life pissing you off.” He reaches into his pocket and emerges with a velvet box, which he opens to reveal a stunning yellow diamond set in gold. “Will you marry me?”
My eyes feel hot with emotion as I stare at him, kneeling before me even though he always groans at proposal scenes in movies and says they’re ridiculous. He’s doing it for me. And I don’t even think about it. I kneel down beside him and take him in my arms, practically tackling him to the ground in my eagerness. “Yes, yes, yes.”
“Thank fuck,” he says, kissing the side of my head and then my lips. “I wasn’t sure what I was going to do if you said no. It would have been a very awkward party.”
I laugh, feeling fizzy and light and indescribably happy. “Can I put it on?”
“Yes, please. The last thing I want is for Blake to try hitting on you again.”
He’s referring to Blake’s “misunderstanding” when he read the beautiful words Alex had written about me in front of everyone in Bear’s Buns.
Sighing with happiness, I take the ring out of the box, and slip it onto my finger. “It fits,” I say in wonder, the rightness of the moment burning inside my chest like an ember.
He gives me a lopsided smile. “To be fair, I did ask Bryn for your ring size. She didn’t know, but I guess your other sister did.”
“Ivy,” I say. “She always used to try on my jewelry when she was a teenager because we have the same ring size. Alex, I can’t believe you went to so much trouble.” I remember the way all of our friends faded out of the room as if suddenly remembering they had something urgent to do. “Does everyone know?”
His smile widens. “The important people, although I’m guessing word got out. That tends to happen here.” But he doesn’t sound that put off by it anymore. Maybe he’s gotten used to it. Maybe other things have started to matter more.
“How much time do we have?”
He looks at me with such love in his eyes, and I instantly know this is the look Bryn was talking about earlier. I want to bask in it. “Willow, we have all the time in the world.”
“Take me upstairs.”
So he does, carrying me like I’m already his bride.
We take our time, undressing each other as if we’re opening Christmas presents, and Alex insists on sinking to his knees again, pulling me to the edge of the bed so he can bury his head between my legs. I’ve already come twice by the time he finally slides inside of me, his eyes dancing, and says, “I like it when you moan my name, fiancé.”
So I do it again, because the feeling of him moving inside me when I’m still so sensitive from his mouth and tongue is so intensely pleasurable I can hardly bear it. We make love slowly, savoring each other’s mouths while our bodies move together, and by the time we’ve gotten dressed and cleaned up enough to look like we’ve been just fooling around, not having sex, we head downstairs. There’s still no one inside, so apparently they took Alex’s instructions to clear off very seriously.
“Just so you know,” Alex says, “I’m going to carry you outside.”
He’s already swooping me off my feet, though, and I’m laughing as he steps out of the door. Our friends instantly break into whoops.
“I take it she said no?” Zach calls out, laughing.
“She said yes,” I announce. I lift my hand up, showing off the ring, and there’s another round of mayhem. I look around at the faces in the crowd, feeling my heart swell at the sight of so many well-loved faces. For so long, I thought I was alone, disposable and unwanted, but I was closing myself off without even realizing it. All along, happiness was at my fingertips. I just had to open myself up enough to seize it. My gaze snags on Bryn, who’s beaming at us…but not without a hint of sadness in her gaze.
Then I see a tall figure coming up behind her, something furry cradled his hands.
“Blake?” I say out loud, and a lot of things happen at once. Harry steps forward as if intent on pulling sheepdog duty, but he seems flummoxed by the sight of Blake’s furry companion. Then Damien tosses an empty plastic cup at Blake, which does indeed hit him in the back of the head. Unfortunately, it doesn’t slow him down.
Alex sets me on my feet, and we both start hurrying over, but there are several people in front of us, including Bear and Dottie and Rowan, who looks pissed without knowing why he should be pissed (thank God he doesn’t know about their make-out session).
“Blake,” Bear says jovially, probably still hoping his talking strategy will work. “I’ve been meaning to ask you some questions about fiscal policy.”
Blake ignores him, continuing toward Bryn, who seems frozen in place by horror, like she just turned into a pillar of salt.
She’s staring in fascination at the furry ball in his arms. “Did you get me a rabbit because of the whole Easter sleigh thing?”
“Well, no,” he says, his tone verging on aggravated. “He was supposed to be, but I only had a few hours to set this up, and I couldn’t find one. The guy down the hall found a litter of kittens abandoned in cardboard box, so I chose the one with the most rabbit-like name. This is Bugs.” Holding the kitten one-armed, he reaches into his pocket and pulls out notecards.
I groan, but Alex whispers, “Look on the bright side. At least he must have written it himself this time.”
“Or so we think,” I hiss.
He shrugs to concede the point.
“Your hair is dark brown,” Blake looks up as though he wants to double-check he’s talking about the right person this time. “Your eyes are blue.”
“Yes,” Bryn says, her tone annoyed. “I’m well aware of what I look like.”
“Your lips are soft and supple, and…”
“You’re talking about my sister,” Rowan says with a growl, getting closer.
Blake stiffens and takes a step back, lifting the hand not holding the kitten. “I don’t want any trouble, dude. I’m trying to romance your sister.”
“I don’t want to be romanced by you,” Bryn says bluntly. “I’m sorry if I unintentionally gave you a different impression, but nothing’s going on between us. I haven’t seen you in months, and I didn’t think about you once.”
It’s a bit of a brutal response, but Bryn’s worked in matchmaking for thirteen years. She knows a lot about reading men, and she’s correctly interpreted that Blake will only back off in response to a hell no.
“You’d be lucky to have me,” Blake sputters. “I have a 401k.”
Rowan takes a step toward him, and he cringes back, the kitten still cradled in his arms.
“What am I supposed to do with this kitten?” Blake continues. “I hear they make terrible pets.”
A laugh of pure delight explodes from Alex.
Nicole calls out, “Stew, if you’re still pretending it’s a rabbit.”
Bryn blanches. “You know,” she says. “I think I’ll keep the kitten. Thank you.”
Blake turns sullenly and lets her take the kitten from him before he leaves, walking with the slumped shoulders of Linus in the Peanuts comics. Despite myself, I feel a little bad for him. Maybe I will ask Dottie to give him a talking-to.
But I’m much more concerned about my sister.
It’s obvious she feels as alone and heartsick as I did in Highland Hills, and I send out a message to God, the universe, or whoever’s listening to send someone for my sister, because Bryn is strong, but she doesn’t need to stand alone. She’s used to being part of a twosome, a team, with Holly. To having Matt by her side. And now she has no one but Nana, and I guess that kitten. I know she and Tina have become friends, but Tina’s head over her heels in love with Zach, and I imagine that has to be a bit hard for Bryn just now.
My romantic’s heart tells me there’s something more out there for Bryn, that her matching turtle dove is still out there, waiting to be found by her.
I just hope she’ll be receptive to him when he shows up.
Find out more about Bryn (and Bugs) in Matchmaking a Billionaire!
Available on Apple, Nook, Kobo, and Google Play from April 25-27
Apple: https://apple.co/3syjCQ9 Nook: https://bit.ly/3CkZ0OZ Kobo: https://bit.ly/3tg0eqs Google Play: https://bit.ly/36JnRjt
Releases to Amazon and KU on April 28
Amazon US: https://amzn.to/33thijQ Amazon UK: https://amzn.to/3vuXEj9 Amazon CA: https://amzn.to/3KcVA3w Amazon AU: https://amzn.to/3hA8Kv3