Page 87 of Grumpy Bear

He mumbled it against my neck, and I shivered.

“I’m still not absolutely sure you said what I think you said.”

He pushed up to hover over me, his hands on either side of my face. “I said, I love you, fucker.” There was no heat in the curse. His sweetest endearments were like flowers on a cactus. He paused, his eyes like two reflective sparks in the dark. “I love you.”

Fireworks, actual freaking fireworks, started popping off in the night sky around his head and shoulders.

I started giggling and couldn’t stop.

He kept asking, “What? What?” yelling to be heard over the detonations.

I finally got control of myself. “You know that’s cheating, right?”

He groaned like a mortified teenager. “Shut up. It’s the Fourth of July.”

In spite of the joy of hearing he loved me, I wasn’t ready to let him off the hook. “My God, the cheese factor, man. So on the nose. Come on.”

“It’s meta, asshole.” There was nothing but affection in his voice.

“You’re going to tell me you love me and call me fucker and asshole in the same breath?”

“Technically not the same breath,” he muttered. He looked down at the place where our crotches were still joined together. “Also, completely accurate.” He ground into me to emphasize his point.

I purred, wrapping my legs around his hips to keep him inside me a little longer. I reached up to trace his eyebrow with my thumb. “I’m never gonna let you live it down, you know.”

“That’s petty.” He lifted his chin, looking all proud and offended. “Can you please just stick to the script?”

“Fine. I love you too.”

It was a relief to say it. It had started to feel like a secret we were keeping from each other. Some inhibition, some camp-romance lore, some unwritten rule about how much time was supposed to pass, what was considered too fast, too good to be true.

We’d already learned that lesson.

Sawyer

It used to make me squirm when I heard people talk about finding their soul mates. It had always sounded like a fairy tale. Until I found my match. I could never have imagined Luke until he appeared, and now I couldn't imagine my world without him. Deciding to spend my life with him—to let him be all the things I’d told myself I didn’t need, wasn’t lacking, and couldn’t exist anyway—was the easiest choice in the world.

Turns out miracles were simple things. One moment your life was one way, and the next it was changed forever. Like something—somebody—flipped a switch.

I thought I’d turned off the part of me that was hoping, looking, seeking, scanning, scanning, scanning like a radio trying to find a station. When he showed up, I recognized him. Like when you hear an awesome band for the first time, and their song hooks you right away, and they sound like every other band you’ve ever loved but also completely different at the same time.

He was familiar but totally new.

Like a whole world existed parallel to mine, a door between them appeared, and he stepped through.

A few days after I’d told Luke I loved him for the first time, on the hike up to the swimming hole, I attempted to elaborate on my feelings about him with a bunch of terrible mixed metaphors about music and magic and portals and vibes.

Of course, he started babbling again about Narnia and Oz and how he really ought to get a pair of red Chucks, and… I had to shut him up with a kiss.

Maintaining the dam was an on-going job that would never be completed, but sharing it with Luke over the past few months had transformed it from a burden to something I looked forward to every week. We joked about it being a euphemism now—checking the dam. July was usually pretty dry, but there was always enough water for a little skinny dipping.

When we neared the top of the holler where the trail took a sharp right to the swimming hole, I turned up a faint path to the left instead.

“Where are you going?”

“I want to show you something.” Past the huge cedar tree that hid it from the trail was a flat grassy meadow with a view of the Blue Ridge Mountains to the north. To the south, you could see the roof of the lodge peeking out of the woods below. “I’ve always wanted to build something up here. A full-sized cabin with a couple of bedrooms, bathrooms, a nice kitchen. Wrap around porches to make the most of the views.”

“Wow.” He stepped out of the shade, turning slowly in the sunshine of the clearing, taking it all in. He was shirtless and sweaty from the hike, his shoulders tanned a deep golden bronze. “It’s beautiful.”