Page 106 of An Unexpected Kind of Love

I give him the small gift on the table. It’s actually two gifts in one. I watch Blake unwrap the package with care, loosening the ribbon, peeling back the paper. Inside, he finds a small framed photo of us that Gemma took of us laughing together in the shop, as Blake covered my face in kisses. And a small handmade booklet of a few poems I’d written while he was away.

And when I look at him, it’s his turn to be suspiciously tearful.

“You wrote these?” Blake marvels at the small hand-bound booklet. “And made this?”

“For you, lovely. I did.” Nights while Blake was away, after the shop work was done for the day, I started working on my poetry in earnest again, finding freedom in writing.

“Nobody’s ever done anything like this for me before.”

“Aww. Well, there you are.”

And then we kiss and I curl into his arm. We settle together on the sofa as he reads aloud a couple of the poems I wrote. And he reads brilliantly, his voice smooth and deep, practiced from his acting life.

Comforted like this, we have cozy winter nights together ahead of us, before the days lengthen once more to summer. Together, we’ll forge our own kind of heat, of heart and home.

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