Page 103 of Resisting the Grump

I laughed. “Yeah, I figured.”

He pulled the marshmallows, chocolate, and graham crackers from the cooler.

“Thanks for asking me up here, Oliver. I’ve had a really good time.”

“I’m so glad,” he said. “It’s a nice place. Even nicer when it’s shared.”

“You said you came up here a lot as a kid,” I said, the questions I’d been curious about all weekend fighting for space on my tongue. “But what about as an adult?”

He turned to look at me. “Are you asking if I’ve brought other women up here?”

Is that so terrible?

“I haven’t, actually,” he said, sticking the tips of the marshmallow roasting rods in the fire

“Not even your ex?” I asked, unable to help myself.

“No,” he said. “I did ask her once, but she declined. Said she didn’t really care for bugs or the elements.”

“That must’ve been disappointing.”

“It was,” he said. “But only because it was before we experienced real disappointment.”

I swallowed, unsure what the right thing to say was.

He stared into the flickering fire for a moment before breaking the silence. “It is what it is, though.” He pierced a puffy marshmallow on the end of each skewer. “Everything happens for a reason.”

“Do you really believe that?”

“Don’t I have to?” he asked. “Don’t we all have to?”

“Why do you think we met?”

He handed me a marshmallow roasting rod.

“If everything happens for a reason?”

He lowered his marshmallow over the fire. “Because you bring out the king in me.”

I angled my body towards him, willing him to elaborate.

“I was a frustrated jester before you came along. Didn’t know what kind of kingdom I wanted to have, what kind of legacy. I was driven but drifting.”

“And now?”

He swept his palm across the scene before us like we were in a tower overlooking a vast, rolling countryside. “Now, I’m a king.”

I cocked my head. “What makes you a king?”

He locked his eyes on mine. “The fact that I have a queen.”

My heart smiled. “Is it that simple?”

He nodded. “A queen is all it takes. A queen is what makes a man feel like a king. She’s what inspires him to behave like one. She’s the reason he takes stock of his kingdom and sets out to improve upon it.”

“Sounds like a lot of pressure. Being someone’s queen.”

“Not if you do it right,” he said. “If you do it right, it should be fun.”

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