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“Oh, thank you,” I mutter, feeling a little strange about accepting congratulations for something so impulsive.
“I know you guys have a lot of history, but Oz is a great guy, he’ll take care of you,” Nero says, in a tone that I think is intended to reassure me but actually makes me tense with awkwardness.
“She knows,” Oz says, his words clipped as he turns and guides me down the stairs and back into the storefront.
“Here,” Tori says once we’re standing in front of the counter full of cakes again. “I put together a little tasting box for you to try,” she says, handing over a white cardboard box tied with a pretty pink ribbon.
“Thank you,” I say on instinct, taking the box when she pushes it toward me.
“Thanks, Tori. How much do I owe you?” Oz asks.
“It’s our gift,” Tori says, waving Oz away as she flashes me a warm, welcoming smile.
“Thanks,” Oz says, taking the box from my hands and curling me beneath his arm as he opens the door and ushers me out onto the street.
“She seems nice,” I say cautiously.
“She is.”
“You didn’t say anything about the Barnetts having a reputation for”—I gesture between us—“doing this kind of thing.”
“That’s because it’s bullshit,” he snaps, beeping open the locks on the truck and sliding the cake box onto the seat. “I didn’t fall in love with you because you were the first person with tits and a cunt I saw that day. I fell in love with you because you’re mine, it just took me fifteen years to realize it.”
“Oz.” Exhaling tiredly, I twist my head and look up at the man beside me. “Do you believe that?”
“Do I believe that you’ve always been mine?” he asks.
“Yes.”
“Yes, I do. I don’t think it has anything to do with this town or the Barnetts. I think it’s just about us. I think that we were always going to end up exactly here, in this moment.”
Pausing, he waits for me to say something, but what could I possibly say in response to that kind of declaration? Do I believe him? Honestly, I don’t know. But the idea that despite our awful past we were meant to end up together makes more sense than some mystical family legacy suddenly moving to a different group of completely unrelated people.
His eyes are warm and enticing when he weaves his fingers through mine again. “Let me show you around your new home,” he drawls, smirking as he toys with the rings on my finger.
Once he pulls me away from his truck, we spend an hour or so wandering the quaint streets of Rockhead Point. The stores are a mix of small-town staples and touristy hotspots, intended to entice visitors to part with their hard-earned money. In comparison to Las Vegas, it’s almost too quiet, and even the tourists are as polite and as relaxed as the pace of this sleepy small town.
To be completely honest, I didn’t love Las Vegas. I moved there simply for the job, and although I made the place home for years, it never truly felt like my home. My apartment was rented and filled with someone else’s choice of furnishings. The tattoo studio I worked in after Octy left was simply a job.
Until I packed up my meager belongings and left, I hadn’t realized how few roots I’d planted there. No real friends, no family, no relationship. When I look back, I can see that that behavior has been a pattern my whole life.
For years after my dad left, Mom and I were alone with a rotating line of her boyfriends, living in whatever apartment we could afford the rent on. After she met Bruce, she stopped bringing home random guys, and we moved into the house they still live in now, but it never really felt like my home because it immediately became tainted by Oz’s anger and bullying. I guess when I left for college, I could have tried to make a new life for myself there, but college isn’t a place you put down roots, and after graduation, I packed up and left again when I moved to Las Vegas.
I don’t know if this small mountain town is where I was intended to end up, but even after such a whirlwind romance, Oz feels like he could be the roots I’ve been trying to find. Maybe instead of tethering myself to a place, I was just waiting to bind myself around him. Or maybe not. Maybe he’ll cause my blossoming roots to wither and die.
Rolling my eyes at myself, I let him guide me into the grocery store. Dropping my hand, he pulls a cart from the row, then curls his arm loosely around my waist while he pushes with one hand.
“Pick out all your favorites so I can learn what you like,” he orders, heading for the fresh produce section.
Considering how much sex we’ve had in the last few days and that we got married on a whim yesterday, it feels oddly intimate to be wandering the aisles and picking out food with him. He’s seen me without clothes on more often than with, but I feel naked as he shows me the food he likes and urges me to do the same.
I don’t remember the small details about Oz from when we were kids. I don’t know what his favorite breakfast cereal was or which color of Skittles he hoarded till the end so there was only his favorite flavor left. If we ever had any good memories back then, I don’t remember them, so despite the past we share, shopping together feels like a brand new experience for me, and I like it more than I’m willing to admit.
By the time we get to the cashier, our cart is overflowing with far too much food for two people to eat. “We got too much,” I whisper as the older guy behind the register rings up our groceries, and the bag boy carefully stacks it all in double-thick paper bags.
“Little One, this is just the essentials. We’ll need to buy more before I go back on shift. This stuff will barely last us the next couple of days,” Oz says, his nose wrinkled in an adorably consternated way.
“This is more than I’d buy for a month,” I argue.
