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Harlan’s eyes went wide. “You told her?”
I nodded. “It just… came out. Kind of like it came out today. Or, last night, I guess.”
Harlan’s hand landed at the side of my face. He gently ran a hand across my hair. “I know I say it too much, but I really am fucking proud of you.”
“Nuh-uh. No. There is no such thing as telling me you’re proud of me too much,” I assured him. “I’ve basically never been told that by any of my family members, ever, in my whole life, so there is a mile-wide void inside me that happily accepts it.”
Harlan grinned. “Well, good,” he said. “I am incredibly proud. And you’re never going to hear the end of me praising you, if you’re really willing to date me.”
I rolled my eyes. “Willing to date you? Harlan Moore, wait until you see what it’s like to date me. You might think you’re falling for me, but once you see how nitpicky I am…”
“Bullshit,” he said. His arms rested gently on my shoulders. “What could you be nitpicky about that I don’t already know?”
I shot him a sly smile. “Well, I like being cuddled after sex.”
“Good thing that’s my specialty.”
“And I like Valentine’s Day, even if it’s a big, corporate scam.”
“You’ve never told me you like V-Day,” he said, cocking his head to one side.
I nodded. “That’s because I’ve never been dating someone seriously enough around that time of the year. I always downplayed it, but I also always wished I had someone to share it with.”
“Sawyer,” Harlan said. “Sawyer, Sawyer, Sawyer. Next Valentine’s Day, you are going to be treated like a prince. You don’t even know what you’re in for. Flower petals on the ground, expensive chocolates, a fine, home-cooked meal, and the best blow job you’ve ever gotten.”
I leaned in and kissed him. “You’ve already given me most of those things, by the way.”
He pulled in a long breath of air, letting it out slowly. “I still can’t believe this is my life,” he murmured, looking in my eyes. “I am the luckiest fool in the world.”
“And I’m going to spend the rest of my life wishing I’d trusted myself sooner,” I told him.
“No time like the present,” Harlan said. “I’m in no rush, Sawyer.”
I’d always hated the word “success.” It had never made sense to me, and of course, I’d always felt like I could never arrive anywhere where I’d feel like I was a success.
Right now, in this moment with Harlan, I had obliterated that concept in my mind.
Nothing could feel like more of a success than a simple moment like this, swaying in the midmorning sunlight with my best friend and the person who I was starting to realize might be the love of my life. I could see the spring blooms and trees outside the big living room window. The smell of the amazing breakfast he’d made me was still faintly in the air. And no matter how much some of my muscles hurt right now, being in his arms was a place that I knew I belonged, without a moment of doubt.
I didn’t have to wonder what success felt like, because I was already here. And I was never going to let myself forget that.
17
HARLAN
“We have ourselves a teaser!” Nathan called out, coming over toward the bar with a laptop in his hands.
“Teaser?” I asked.
“If there’s anything I’ve learned from having a TV show, it’s that the pre-season teasers set the tone for the whole thing,” Nathan said. “The internet goes nuts for them.”
“It’s a ninety-second long video,” Shawn said, coming in after Nathan. “It has little clips from Season Two to get people interested.”
“It’s already online?” Rush said, walking up beside me with a case full of whiskey bottles. “Also, Shawn, has anyone told you how fucking hot you are yet today?”
“Only you, my love,” Shawn said, smiling at Rush. “And only three times.”
“Not acceptable,” Rush said, setting down the case of liquor and leaning over the bar to give Shawn a kiss. “Now let’s see that teaser video.”
It felt strange to be in the brewery without Sawyer around. It had been a few days since his accident, and he’d been staying at my house, healing and resting and being the hottest person in an arm sling I’d ever seen.
I smiled to myself silently behind the bar, hearing Sawyer’s voice in my mind: It’s not a sling, it’s a soft cast!
Nathan opened up the laptop on the bar, facing it so that we all could see it. He fullscreened the video and pushed play, and for the first half of the teaser video, everything seemed like business as usual. There was footage of demolition and renovation on a 100-year-old home that the Fixer Brothers had worked on a couple of months ago, and plenty of in-between clips of the guys in the office or walking around Jade River.
