Page 85 of Love in Fine Print

Every year I gave Jake money, so his gift was a no-brainer. But there was one gift I’d given a lot of thought to. It was the one I’d gotten for Olivia. Now the only question was, when should I give it to her? It wasn’t anything big, just a necklace. I was leaning toward giving it to her tonight. I remember her saying her dad had always let her open one gift on Christmas Eve. I doubted that she’d want to open it in front of anyone else. She was a very private person.

My thought was that I’d give it to her after we went to bed tonight.

Bed. We were going to be sharing a bed for the next week and a half. It had taken every ounce of self-control I possessed, and hell, some that I didn’t have, to stop myself from kissing her and from touching her, these past two months we’d been living together, just the two of us. But today when I walked in the house with Jake, all bets were off. I couldn’t help but pull her into my arms and kiss her senseless. And I’d kept doing it all through our Christmas Tree Selfie Hop.

The past two months had felt like extended foreplay. All of the PDA had built up inside of me, and I was ready to burst. For the next ten nights, we’d be in the same room together. All night. I knew that she was attracted to me. Several times over these two months, I’d thought she was going to kiss me, but she hadn’t. I couldn’t stop thinking about, obsessing about, what might happen tonight.

“So, how are things going with our Miss Olivia?” Trevor asked as he stepped beside me, intruding on my invasive thoughts.

“Okay, I think.” I answered in the most honest way I could as I noticed Olivia and Jake had gotten their snack and were walking toward us.

Trevor leaned toward me. “She’s a hard one to read, but once you open the book, you’ll never want to put it down.”

Damn. That was the truth.

“Ready to go to the next stop?” Olivia asked me and Trevor.

“Abso-fucking-lutely!” Trevor declared loudly.

She smiled as Trevor threaded his arm through hers and they broke out into the opening credits choreography fromLaverne & Shirleyas Trevor yelled at the top of his lungs, “Schlemiel! Schlimazel! Hasenpfeffer Incorporated!”

“What are they doing?” Jake asked.

“It’s fromLaverne & Shirley,” I explained.

“Who?”

“Laverne & Shirley, it was a spinoff ofHappy Days.”

“What’sHappy Days?”

“It was a show with Ron Howard.”

“The lady fromJurassic World’sdad?”

“Yeah.” I was only thirty-five, but being around Jake made me feel ancient.

The singing duo continued down the street with Trevor belting out the rest of the song, exclaiming that they would take any chance and break any rule given to them because they were going to make their dreams come true their way.

“I like Trevor. He’s funny,” Jake commented.

“Yeah. He is.”

“Do you like being married?” Jake asked.

“I do.”

“I didn’t think you’d ever get married.”

“Yeah, neither did I.”

Jake and I had never talked about my relationship status, or lack thereof, before. The closest we got was when he asked my advice for his promposal to Jenny Garrison. I’d helped him come up with a plan, even though promposals were not around back in my day.

Fuck. I really was ancient.

“I’m glad you did.”

“So am I,” I agreed.

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