Page 59 of Follow Your Bliss

“Morning,” I said. “Are we still going to Seaside today?”

His eyes scanned down my body, and he smiled brightly before answering me. “Morning, beautiful. I want to if you want to.” He closed the lid on his laptop and walked up to me, pulling me into his arms and placing a kiss on the top of my head while he rubbed my back. “I made coffee.”

I smiled, wrapping my arms around his middle and breathing in his scent. Not only was it not awkward, he almost made me feelcherished. That was new.

“Do you still want to go to Seaside? I was looking for other things to do, and I found a state park nearby. They have a waterfall, and—”

“Are you trying to trick me into hiking?” I yawned, my words slurry and sleepy against his chest. “‘Cause it sounds like you’re trying to trick me into hiking.”

He pulled back and smiled at me. “I just thought it’d be cool to see a waterfall, that’s all.”

“I mean, if you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all. You’ve never seen a waterfall?”

“I’ve seen a couple. Have you?”

“A few. Niagara Falls, Ruby Falls, Bridal Veil Falls in Yosemite. I mean, with a name like that, I had to see it.”

“You’re waterfalled out. Duly noted. Seaside it is.” He leaned in to kiss me, but I put my hand over my mouth.

“Morning breath.”

A corner of his mouth tugged up. “As if that would stop me.”

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” I stood on my tiptoes and met his lips, fell into deep kissing until my bladder started knocking on my brain. “Jason. I have to pee.”

He squeezed my ass with both hands. “Then go pee and get ready.”

Two hours later, Jason was fangirling around a housewares shop in Seaside, a nest of shops and activity in a horseshoe around a green space and an amphitheater.

“Do I really need these retro orange juice glasses?” he asked, carefully sitting a couple of them in his basket. “No. But they look just like the ones my grandma had when I was a kid, and I can’t pass them up.”

I smiled. This shop gave us the first five minutes out today that he wasn’t obsessing over his meeting with Big Dick Tools tomorrow morning. “As long as you’re enjoying your retail therapy.” I checked the price tag on a cute ceramic cheese and crackers tray I absolutely didn’t need. I was usually too rabid for cheese to make it look pretty first.

“Retail therapy?” he asked.

“Yes, and now I’ve broken the spell. How are you feeling about your meeting tomorrow?”

He eyed the glasses in his basket, then added two more from the display. “I’m really nervous. What if I get there, and they say, ‘No, we’ve made a horrible mistake’?”

“You’re looking at this the wrong way. Sure, maybe they just want to get eyes on you and make sure you are who you say you are and you’re not a psycho or anything. But I really think tomorrow’s meeting is foryouto see if you want to work withthem. They reached out toyou, which to me means they’ve already done their research and it’s a done deal as far as they’re concerned. All you need to do is walk in, be your charming self—”

He interrupted me with a smile and a peck on the lips.

“—and get a feel for whether you want to work withthem.” I shrugged. “That’s how I see it. And if you don’t like something, walk away.”

“No way would I walk away. This is everything I’ve been working toward. Without this, I’ll never be able to turn my community room into a house.”

“I don’t believe that. If this isn’t your way, then your way is coming.”

He nodded and looked around, as if taking my words in. “That’s a good way to look at it.”

“I think that’s how the universe works. It closes doors that aren’t for you, and opens ones when you least—ooh, look at that!” I made a beeline across the small store to look at a wooden wall shelf for sale. Whitewashed and slightly distressed, the back was pointed at the top with glass panes like a church window. They had it styled with tarot cards, incense holders, big hunks of amethyst, quartz, and other witchy knick-knacks. “It reminds me of your house.”

He nodded, studying it from all angles. I smiled. That must be how I looked when I tried to figure out if I could sew something I saw in a store. “That is cool.” He flipped the price tag. “Oof—that’s a lot for such a small shelf. I could totally make it for less than that.”

I chuckled. “You sound like me in a dress shop. I love how deep the shelves are, too. I could probably fit all my crystals on it and still have room to grow.”

“I wish I could get it for you, but maybe I can make—”

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