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Had I included no scenes in that no sex while drunk rule?
Why did we have so many candles?
“That’s perfect.” His sigh and the smile on his face, tender but still obviously tipsy, had me either wanting to chuckle or shake my head. “We’ve got so many.”
Okay, maybe he was the reason we had a thousand of them?
“They’re an inexpensive way to elevate a room.” Ender sounded like he was quoting a magazine and I had a feeling inebriated Ender was giving me a peek into his fascinating mind. “I didn’t think it would work but it did. You like the candles.”
I did?
Maybe.
With a vague memory of a conversation when we’d first moved in about how they made the place look more grown-up, I nodded. “You’re right. I think they’re beautiful.”
That was clearly the right response based on his sigh, but when I turned around after lighting the last one, I had a moment of panic because I’d lost him.
He’d been right there?
For fuck’s sake.
“One at a time.” In an almost singsong voice that made me positively sure the drink had been loaded as hell, Ender was coming down the stairs on his ass. “Not gonna fall. That’s not romantic.”
He might’ve lost his embarrassment somewhere, but when he eventually found it, I was going to have fun reminding him of this moment.
“Emergency rooms are only romantic in stupid movies.”
What had he been watching?
“All done.” Standing as he reached the bottom of the stairs, he seemed to think he’d been subtle because he just smiled and gave me a wave. “Hi.”
“Hi.” We were definitely going to stick with beer when we went out, no matter if he wanted liquid courage or not…because that had to have been what this was all about.
Looking back, I realized I should’ve seen the signs of his mind going a thousand miles an hour. But as we’d sat down and started ordering, I’d thought it’d been about the dating thing in general. Nope. This was not about us dating.
This was about…
Candles.
Weird lighting.
And a speaker was now sitting on the kitchen table.
I was a bit slow but not utterly hopeless.
This was about romance…and dancing based on the slow music filling the room. Kenny G, if I wasn’t mistaken?
As my brain wondered how he’d jumped to this being the most romantic song he could pick, he walked over, swaying his hips somewhere between a drunk swagger and actual dancing. “One of my only strong memories of my great-grandparents is when they would dance in the kitchen. I remember her loving this song and they’d sway. It’s romantic, right?”
The fact that he had to go back that far to find family members who could make him smile wasn’t a surprise but that I hadn’t heard this memory before was.
Ender looked down at his hands as he finally came up to me, probably wondering where to put them, so I just wrapped him in my arms and tucked his head against my shoulder. “Come here, pup. I think this is wonderfully romantic.”
And I was starting to see why he’d needed the courage.
Letting out a deep breath, Ender radiated relief as he snuggled closer. “Oh, good. I didn’t have anything else I knew would be partner romantic.”
To me that implied there was partner romantic and probably something like hook-up romantic, but I wasn’t going to ask.
