Page 54 of Just a Little Crush
“While we’re here, I have another surprise for you.”
“Another?” I sniff and regain my composure. “It really is my lucky day.”
“Oh, you have no idea, baby. Your ankle feeling OK?”
“It’s fine, it’s been fine for months.” I twirl it around for show, but I nearly lose my balance when he grabs me and yanks me closer. In one quick motion, he spins me to face away from him, pins my arms behind my back, and holds me tight against his chest.
“You see those woods over there?” He nods his head towards the treeline beyond the meadow.Oh fuck.That deep, growly voice. I’m in big trouble.
“I’ll give you a head start. You can hide, but I’ll always find you.”
Surely not. Not now.
My heart rate kicks up a gear, my blood wooshes in my ears. Rennie lowers his mouth to my neck and takes a long, possessive, animalistic lick until he reaches my earlobe and tugs it between his teeth. “Run.”
28
Epilogue - Bec
Eight Years Later
Archieusesbothhandsto push through the shop door and, after a minute of checking over the window display, I follow him inside.
“Oh, here comes the tennis mum,” Rennie calls out, laughing away behind the counter. I roll my eyes, but I can’t help smiling. Despite stepping up into his Uncle Jeff’s Chief Fire Officer position when he retired last year, my gorgeous husband still helps out in the shop so I can spend some quality time with our son. Turns out he’s quite the tennis champ at just seven years old.
Rennie finds it hilarious that I’ve become one of the mums I used to be so snobby about, but it turns out they’re a pretty great bunch, and I was shocked to discover they do in fact eat dairy. They also drink wine, read romance novels, and have minds almost as filthy as mine. Which is to say, our monthly book club is a riot.
“How’d you play today, buddy?” Rennie asks, ruffling Archie’s hair while our boy hugs him round the waist.
“I was great. Won two, drew one.” He lets go and starts digging for a packet of crisps from the display basket by the till. A cheeky perk of being the owner’s son. He takes two different flavours and tips one into the other, shaking to mix them. Archie gets his appetite from his dad, and his name from my Gramps.
I round the counter and Rennie pulls me into his arms, lifting my chin up for a firm kiss that’s full of longing. In the beginning of our relationship I felt super awkward about PDA, a hangover from all the years spent hiding my feelings about him. Rennie, on the other hand, has never gotten bored of showing the world who his girl is. “There’s a parcel for you out back,” he says with a wink and squeeze of my bum.
“Can you please stop sending sex toys to the shop?” I say through gritted teeth. “Those aren’t as discreet as you think.” Our local postie knows a lot more about me than either of us is comfortable with.
“Well, I don’t want the Boss ripping into them at home,” he whispers through his own forced smile, nodding his head towards my feet.
I crouch down and whip back the curtain that conceals the cubby beneath the counter.
“A-ha! I was wondering where you were!”
“Ahhh, Mama! I’m working!” says the red-faced little girl, whose ‘work’ appears to be unravelling receipt paper. Rennie is not wrong about the parcel thief. At four years old, our daughter, Grace, has zero respect for people’s boundaries or personal belongings. I leave her to it and throw on my apron to relieve Rennie. There’s no reasoning with her when she’s on one of her missions.
A born gossip, Grace fits right into this town. She always wants to know what people are buying, where they’ve been, and our regular customers joke that she’ll be taking over from me before I know it. I think Gramps would absolutely love that.
Rennie as a father has been the most incredible thing to witness. His doting through my pregnancies bordered on unhinged, with him refusing to let me do almost anything from the 6 month mark. But as soon as I saw our babies in his arms, it was all worth it.
“Mama,” Grace pipes up from my ankles. “What does this say?”
“What does what say, honey?”
“The words.”
I crouch down to see what she’s pointing at. I used to love hiding out in this spot when I was her age. In the end I have to lie down to see it and my heart bursts wide open when I realise what I’m looking at. There on the underside of the shelf are the outlines of two small hands, our names scribbled above them.
“Oh my god,” I gasp. “It says Rebecca loves Alistair.”
“Who’s that?” Grace asks, squishing in alongside me.
