Page 52 of Margo and the Faux Good Luck Beau
“You can and you will, Honey Butter.”
That teases a grin out of her. “Honey Butter?” she repeats.
The corners of my lips swizzle or something. I don’t know. “I wanted to give you a nickname. It fits.”
She turns to me and bounces on her toes. “Ah, there it is. What I’ve been waiting for all night. A birthday smile. I even see your teeth. Wow. So pearly,” she teases.
“For the record, I still have all mine. No dentures.”
Moving closer, the crook of her wiggling fingers tells me she’s up to something.
“How do you take your years? Pinches? Spankings?” Margo asks, referring to a custom that the guys do involving punches. Ted got me good.
I bite my lower lip and take a risk. “Actually, how about kisses?”
We start the day how we began, outside, only this time the stars are blinking above as the moon crests the sky. It’s open, spreading like a sheet dotted with possibility.
Gaze on mine, Margo says, “Kisses, huh? I can do that.”
The first one lands softly, sending a ripple through me.
She gets to five pecks on my right cheek then switches to the other side, counting each one, sending a thrill through me that’s no less exhilarating than the last. I want to slow down, but she still has more than double to go.
At ten, she pauses and her gaze hovers over mine as if she’s calculating something, not the number of kisses left, but something else.
She leans into my forehead, planting her lips there. “Eleven.”
My breath snags.
She dots a kiss on my nose. “Twelve.”
My eyes close.
“Thirteen.” My chin.
The world stands still as she meets my lips, pecking out the remaining kisses until she reaches twenty-eight.
This is no longer a silly birthday ritual. The atmosphere is charged. It’s as if the chemical makeup of the very air we breathe changes, recalibrates. My pulse jumps and then takes off at a sprint as she lingers on my lips for the last kiss.
Margo whispers against my mouth, “Twenty-nine.”
I’m determined to find out what her cheat code is. She mentioned her brother playing video games. There was a brief period when I was thirteen that I got heavily into Chel—the NHL video game. I’d never cheat. Not in hockey or my personal life. A cheat code in a video game is a combination of buttons that results in some kind of advantage for the player. Only, this isn’tabout me. I want to figure out what to say or do that will make Margo realize how amazing she is.
Drawing away, she says, “Happy birthday.”
“Happy birthday to me,” I repeat, never before having experienced something so intensely intimate. Is that because it’s her? Us? Because we’re both one frayed thread away from letting go of the past and giving ourselves over to something more? Something bigger. Something that’s ours? Something real?
Walking backward, Margo moves toward the truck, but I’m not done. I’ve never felt this way about someone. Only something—hockey. And like the game, I know with absolute certainty that she’s my future.
CHAPTER TWELVE
I don’t knowwhat came over me, but red-cheeked and lips throbbing, I feel the need to stand out here in the cold for a minute or a hundred after those twenty-nine birthday kisses.
Apparently, Beau has other plans.
“Come here,” he says, eyes never wavering from me.
I pause, my antennae tuned to the desire in his voice. The unmistakable fire in his eyes draws me toward the warmth even though I’m already burning up.
