Page 59 of Crushes to WHAT

“I did,” I answer, cuddling up to my new husband in a shadowed corner booth at Blackwood Brew. My gaze strays to Penelope’s newly shorn locks swinging around the bar floor as her husband spins her in a dance. “Do you like it?”

“I like everything you do,” Emerson replies. He lays a kiss on my temple. “But I especially like that even today, on a day that’s meant for you, you don’t have a selfish bone in your body.” He smiles against my hair. “My Almond. My wife. Always thinking of other people. Always making everyone’s days—everyone’s lives—better.” He dips his head, and his next kiss lands on my neck. “I love you.”

“I love you,” I reply, melting into him.

He sighs, content, and I’m startled when he follows his sigh with a snort. “Fox looks like he’s going to have a coronary.”

Yes. Well. Fox found out yesterday that he’d be closing the bar today for a wedding celebration, and that he’ll be shutting it down again in a few month’s time when Emerson and I have our second wedding—and second reception. “You only get one wedding,” he’d groused. “One! You don’t get to prance around my empty bar twice just because you’re impatient!”

Mom had grabbed his ear, dragged him off to somewhere, and returned twenty minutes later with a much more agreeable son.

Bless that woman.

She and Dad weave around Emerson’s parents on the makeshift dance floor. Dad’s face has tear track stains, and Mom occasionally sends a warning look to her maybe-eldest son, but… They look happy, and it warms me to see.

Everyone looks happy, save for Eris, but once Poem delivers a steaming plate of fried potatoes, I’m sure that will clear up—at least for as long as the plate lasts.

Even Fox has found a pocket of joy for me underneath his business-minded irritations. I’m going to pretend the joy is for me, his darling sister on her wedding day, anyway, instead of for Poem’s bottom, which has his full attention as she leans over the bar to improve Eris’ mood.

Wolfe and Amia dance together outside the chaos of older couples, and I laugh when Sterne steps in to tap Wolfe’s shoulder and ask for his own round with the little princess.

“It’s a good day,” I say.

“It’s the best day,” Emerson corrects. “The best day with my wife.”

I sigh and echo, “The best day with my husband.”

And it freaking, freaking is.

Epilogue

▲

I do so love the way they play.

Emerson

I’m tearing a sheet of plastic off a stack of wooden planks in Almond’s hair studio when the oven beeps in the house. I hear it through the cracked door, which I kept cracked specifically for this moment.

I set the dusty sheet aside and enter the main part of the house, wiping my hands on my cargo pants as I walk down the hall to the kitchen. I turn the timer off, then wash my hands before donning a pair of chicken-shaped oven mitts. I retrieve the two casserole dishes of lasagna from the heat and set them on floral trivets to cool. I toss the mitts beside the steaming dishes.

As I round the island to get to the living room, I glance at the arrangement of flowers in the pink vase Almond likes best sitting in the middle of the floating block of counter. A sprig of baby’s breath looks a little sad, so I give it a nudge until it regains some vigor.

When I wander to the living room doorway, I pause.

Dozens of candles light the room in a soft glow. The butter-yellow walls suffuse the light warmly as flickers of flame wave at me from all over. Tapered candles twinkle on the shelf I built for Almond’s darkest books. Blocky pillar candles sit radiant atop teacup saucers that sit atop stacks of hair magazines on the coffee table. Tea light candles illuminate the window sills, thankfully far from the curtains Almond’s tied and looped around the rods to keep the fabric—and her—safe.

On the couch, my wife slumbers beneath a chunky throw blanket. An open book rests face down on her stomach, and one slender hand grasps its hard cover.

I approach, gingerly avoiding the flames, and stand before her. My eyes wander from her hair to her cheekbones, and lower, to her lips. They skate over her jawline, rest on her neck, then her cleavage, before moving to her book.

I know this one. She’s been reading it for a couple days and leaving comments all over her Goodreads as she works her way through it. It’s dark, and apparently the male lead is a bit of a tease. She’s dedicated at least half of her posts to both hating and loving how close he comes to kissing his heroine without ever actually gracing her lips with his.

It’s been a rather inspiring read for me, even if I haven’t flipped through any of the pages myself.

I drop to my knees and pluck the book from her hand. A bookmark rests on the coffee table behind me, and I insert it into the pages she was open to before setting the whole thing aside.

Leaning over my gorgeous, tempting wife, I brush my mouth against her ear. “Baby,” I whisper.