Page 24 of Lucky Star

“Will you promise you’ll get that looked at tomorrow?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Cameron laughed, and all at once, launched himself from the bed and dug his phone out of his pocket. His fingers flew over the keyboard as he chuckled to himself. The click, clack, click sounded as he typed, and I wondered what he was saying and to who. Before I could ask, the whoosh of a message being sent echoed in the room and then the beep, beep, beep on my phone signaled I’d received a new text message.

I raised my eyebrow, a silent question, and he laughed again. Crawling his way toward me on the bed, his eyes sparked with mischief. I’d always thought of him a generally happy person, but in the minutes since I’d agreed to marry him, that happiness had become a pulsing, living thing. He was joyful and carefree in a way I hadn’t seen in many, many months. Had the secret of his love for me weighed as heavily on him as it had on me? Was that why over the past few months he’d seemed a dimmer version of his best self?

He nudged me into the pillows and straddled me. It took every ounce of willpower I had not to lick the muscled expanse of skin before me, to bite and suckle it as I wanted to. I grinned as a memory from the previous summer popped into my head. Knowing my secret was safe with her, I’d confided to a work friend who’d come to one of my barbeques that I wanted to lick Cameron from head to toe. She’d taken one look at him, ran her eyes up and down his body, and said, “Yup, I can see that.” Now I could do that whenever I wanted. It was like I’d won the Beautiful Man Lottery.

Before I could put my plans of licking him to distraction into play, Cameron grabbed my phone off of the bedside table and dropped back on his haunches as he typed in my four-digit passcode and handed it to me.

“Wait, you know my secret code?”

He shrugged. “You know mine too.”

“Yeah, but yours is easy. One-one-one-one isn’t exactly quantum physics.”

“Neither is your birthday.” He had me there. “You have a message,” he nodded toward the device in my hand.

I hit the green icon and saw a new message, the “to” field having been populated with the names and numbers of several of our friends. Below was a selfie I’d taken four months ago, me smiling cheerfully at the camera while Cameron’s lips rested playfully on my cheek.

Despite the few beers I’d consumed that afternoon, I recalled the moment the photo had been taken perfectly. A bunch of us were horsing around in James and Charlie’s backyard, waiting for him to finish grilling up the steaks on the grill. The sun was shining, birds were chirping, and it was a glorious Saturday afternoon in Southern California.

While my friends laughed, talked, and bantered amongst themselves, I pulled out my phone and started taking pictures. After about twenty snaps, I went to put my phone away when Cameron trotted over to complain that I hadn’t taken a picture of us. Frankly, I’d been surprised he’d noticed.

I’d been trying to keep my distance because I wasn’t doing too well dealing with my unrequited love, worried I’d say or do something that would give my feelings away. All that day, I’d had done my best to avoid him. I thought I’d done a good job too, until he sauntered over and demanded I take the picture.

I wrapped my arm around him to pull him in close, our heads nearly touching, and told him to smile on the count of three. Just as I moved my finger to hit the button Cameron turned his face and planted a kiss on my cheek. There was nothing overtly romantic about the gesture, but it flustered me nonetheless. Looking at the photo now you’d never guess that seconds later I’d hidden away in the bathroom, talking myself down from the proverbial ledge. The picture staring back at me was of two happy, carefree people, a sweet, easy moment captured forever.

Now I knew that Cameron had had his own struggles that day, his love for me locked away in the safety of his heart. I looked down at the phone in my hand, seeing the photograph in an entirely new light—all of our interactions over the last several months in a whole new way. We’d wasted so much time.

My thoughts back in the present, I read the text accompanying the photo.

Cameron: The pleasure of your company is requested tomorrow to celebrate the engagement of Cameron Scott and Sarah Travers. This is a party you don’t want to miss!

As I read the message, reality crashed over me and I started shaking. My eyes welled with tears that soon cascaded down my face as a sob broke free. It was real. We were real. Cameron had just told all of our friends we were getting married.

He picked me up like I weighed nothing and sat me in his lap, hugging me to him while I released all the pent-up emotions I’d been holding in for as long as I could remember. All the heartache, the secrets, and unfulfilled desires were nothing compared to the sheer joy and unabashed happiness I felt now.

He pushed my hair off my face and wiped away my tears with the pads of his thumbs. “Shh, don’t cry sweetheart.” In the background, our phones dinged repeatedly.

When I had cried myself dry, I wiped my face, hugged him quickly, and climbed from his lap. My face was a red, splotchy mess but I didn’t care. I couldn’t stop smiling. “It looks like we’re throwing a party, so we better go shopping.”

It didn’t matter that it was four o’clock in the morning. The Ralph’s down the hill was open twenty-four hours for all your crazy middle-of-the-night cravings, and it would have everything we’d need to feed our friends. We’d likely encounter a veritable who’s who of weirdoes at this time of the morning, but that was Hollywood for you.

“First I need to shower though.”

There was absolutely no way I was leaving the house in my current state. Images of our lovemaking came back to me, snippets of our bodies coming together, Cameron’s face as he loomed over me, coming inside of me, crying out my name as he climaxed. I blushed and felt heat wash over me that had nothing to do with the temperature in my bedroom. I turned to walk into the bathroom—intent on taking a cold shower—but before I could reach the doorway, Cameron was behind me, wrapping his arms around my middle and kissing the back of my neck where it met the slope of my back.

“Come back to bed,” he whispered in my ear. “First, we need to celebrate, Mrs. Scott.”

His words sent a tremor through me, the knowledge that someday soon I would indeed be his wife.

Mrs. Cameron Scott.

Sarah Travers Scott.

Sarah Scott.

Yeah, we had a lot to celebrate.

I leaned into him, feeling his erection pressing into me, hard and insistent. How he had it in him to make love to me again so soon after the last time, I didn’t know. But I wasn’t going to question my good fortune either.

After all, not every woman got the chance to marry a man who fulfilled all of her wildest fantasies.

And we were just getting started.

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