Page 74 of Lyrical

“Yep. I hope that’ll do for tonight.”

“Are you kidding me? It sounds incredible.”

He lifted the lid off my favorite incinerating shrimp pasta from our favorite restaurant, and I’m pretty sure I moaned. He raised an eyebrow. “Should I be jealous?”

I wrapped my arms around him. “This is perfect, Chase. Thank you.” It wasn’t like our restaurant was close by. It would’ve taken him over an hour round trip to get this food. “I can’t believe you went there just for takeout.”

“I had it in warmers, so it should still be pretty good.”

“Doesn’t matter. I’d eat this frozen.”

He chuckled, gripping my waist and setting me on the rock freshly kissed. I sat cross-legged and picked up my plate, inhaling the deliciousness. I was in absolute heaven.

I waited for him to settle next to me before twirling my fork in the pasta. I raised my hand to take a bite, but he stopped me.

“A quick toast first.”

I placed the fork back down, telling my cursing stomach to behave, and smiled at him. “Thank you again, “I said.

“Don’t you want to hear the toast first? Maybe you’ll want to slap me instead.”

“God, I hope so.”

He grinned, handing me a bottle of Spotted Cow. He popped it open and then picked up his own, clinking it to mine. “To forever, Jillian.”

“To forever,” I repeated. Simple and meaningful. Utopia.

We dug in after that, and the first bite was divine. The second was even better. My mouth was on fire, but the beer was ice cold, and the two together made the ideal marriage.

“I think their food is just as good as anything we had in New Orleans,” I said.

“Then I guess we don’t need to go back.”

I bumped shoulders with him. “Yeah, right. Next time we’re going for a week.”

“It’s a date.” I tried mumbling my agreement through a mouthful, but it didn’t work out too well. “Unless you have a policy against dating younger men or something,” he teased.

“Hmm… I think for you I’ll make an exception.”

“Lucky me.”

“No, lucky me.” I touched my lips to his after he took a sip of beer, cooling mine off. “Seriously, Chase. I can’t believe you did all this for me. We’ve never had a picnic here before. I love it.”

“Compared to everything I want to do for you, Jillian? This is nothing.”

I slowly chewed another forkful, wondering where we’d go from there. Nature abhors a vacuum, as they stay. As beautiful as the moment was, there was always something else to take its place, but I didn’t want to be spending this time with him feeling like I was in philosophy class. Yes, we’d change just like everything else, but as long as it was for the better, bring it on.

He hadn’t brought up the kid thing again, and I was starting to think it was just a spontaneous conversation spurred on by hormones and emotions. I figured that if it was important to him, he’d let me know. I wasn’t sure how I’d respond yet if he did, but I owed it to him to at least discuss it.

We quietly ate our food for a while before he asked, “Do you remember the first time we went to Zydecki’s?”

“Of course I do. Our first nondate.”

“Oh, it was a date. You just didn’t know it at the time.”

“Is that so? A little cocky, were you?”

He snatched a shrimp off my plate. “I knew you’d be mine someday, even if I didn’t know how or what we’d have to go through to get there.”

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