Page 74 of Sea La Vie
“Oh, sorry,” I bluster. “I was trying something new.” Tate arches an eyebrow, and a smirk spreads across his face. “What’s up?” I ask glancing between them.
“Do you have a minute?” Tate asks. “Or actually, like a couple hours? I want to show you something.”
33
Tate
Lainey slides into the backseat of my car clumsily, the handkerchief tied around her eyes slipping. “No peeking,” I warn.
“I feel like this is everything my dad warned me against when I was a kid,” Lainey mutters. “Where did I go wrong?”
I stifle a chuckle and buckle her in, pulling on the strap to double check it. “We’re all set.” Cara slides into the passenger seat, and we pull out onto the road. After a few minutes, I hear Lainey’s bored voice from behind. “I know you’re going around in circles to trip me up. It’s not working.”
Cara bursts out laughing beside me. “Busted.”
“Whatever,” I mutter with an eye roll. A few minutes later we pull into a newly graveled parking lot. I weave around the cars and find a spot right at the front entrance. “Don’t you dare think about taking that off yet,” I warn.
Lainey pretends to be frustrated, but I can tell she’s excited by the way her smile shows her dimple, so deep and charming you could swim in it. Her neck is flushed, too, a sign she’sembarrassed by the fuss over her. I help her out of the vehicle and wrap my arm around her shoulders. I can’t help but notice how perfectly she fits there, like the puzzle piece I never knew I was missing.
“I’m going to take it off you on the count of three, okay?” Lainey nods. “One…two…three. Open your eyes, Lainey.”
The bandana falls to the ground, and I watch as Lainey’s eyes adjust to the sunlight streaming down on all the newly planted flowers in her mother’s garden. Her eyes narrow in confusion, then grow wide with shock, then finally, they turn to me, tears threatening to spill from their brims. “You did this?”
“We all did this,” I tell her, and nod toward the community that helped raise Lainey, slowly starting to make their way from behind the surrounding trees. Cheers of ‘surprise’ float around us, but for a moment, time slows down. It’s just the two of us in this perfect bubble where nothing can touch us. She steps forward and throws both arms around my neck, burrowing her face into my chest. When she pulls back after a beat, she kisses me so softly, it’s barely a whisper against my lips. “Thank you,” she breathes. She tilts her face up, and her eyes meet mine. I slide my hand behind her neck, and my other around her waist, as I tilt her back. She’s nearly suspended in the air, with the exception of one foot anchored on the ground. She smiles, her breath hitching, and I lean in to press my lips against hers. I could spend the rest of my life kissing her, tasting that vanilla chapstick on her lips that I can’t seem to get enough of, and it still wouldn’t be enough. I’m an addict, and the need to be with Lainey consumes my every desire.
Cheers emanate from around us, someone who I’m sure is Eden is catcalling and whistling. When we pull apart, and I set her gently back on her feet, her face is incandescent—glowing with pure happiness.
She turns to the small crowd, her smile beaming, and takes in each and every one who’s helped shape this garden in some way or another. “Why? Why did you do this?”
I shrug. “You deserve the world, Lainey. I wanted to show you that. We all did.”
She grabs my hand, and I follow her as she twists and turns around the garden, examining each and every variety of flower. When we make it around the garden once, she turns to face me.
“This can’t be real,” she says.
“Eden ordered me the books, Al and Miss Kat let me borrow their tiller. Lucille donated her opinions and nothing else…how nice of her that was,” I say with an eye roll. She giggles. “And the other day, when I said I had a meeting with a contractor, I told him what we were doing. Once he heard, he cleared his books for the next day to deliver all the gravel for the parking lot.”
Lainey’s eyes sparkle with new unshed tears. “What about that?” She points to a rustic, hand painted sign hanging above the entrance.
“Your dad made that actually,” I say.
“He knew?”
“Your whole family was in on it.” I nod to the other end of the garden, where Archer, Huck, and Henry are sitting in lawn chairs around a newly started fire. In between them, over the fire, sits a large cast iron pot which Archer stirs every few minutes. He looks up and catches my eye, then Lainey’s, and smiles.
“Let me show you the best part,” I say. We walk to the far end of the parking lot and I unlock the door of a box trailer. Lainey climbs in behind me, and together, we lift a door on the side. Sunlight filters in, shining on the custom benches lining the sides. “You can travel to markets, festivals, anywhere you want with your flowers so you can actually do this,” I explain. “As abusiness. I mean, if you want to. If you don’t, that’s okay too,” I rush to add.
Lainey’s smile grows so wide, I get a glimpse into what her childhood Christmases probably looked like. “Thank you, Tate. For everything.”
I brush off her thanks but she grabs my hand. “Really. I found myself because of you. I’m not Lainey, the one who helps clean up the catch of the day or who helps get the general store's freezer running again. I’m not the Lainey who waits tables or the one who doesn’t have time for herself. I’m Lainey…the proud owner of all this. Exactly who I’ve always wanted to be. And I know my mom would be so proud.”
She grins, and I wrap my arms around her. She leans her head against my chest as I tip my chin down to kiss the top of her hair. A moment later, she breaks away from me but grabs my hand.
“Do you want to come with me?” She nods toward the small crowd, and I know she’s eager to thank them for all the work they’ve done to make this place magical.
“Lainey, I’d go anywhere with you.” She grins again, her smile magnetic. I actually want to stay back here, in the dark confines of the shop trailer, where I can kiss her until her lips are swollen. But instead, I follow her back outside to her family, her friends, and the smell of a seafood boil waiting on us.
Her first stop is her dad and brothers. She leans down and gives her dad a quick hug, then puts a hand on her hip. “You knew all along?”
