Page 51 of Marriage is a Shore Thing
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Her tone is defiant, but her lashes fan on her cheeks, her jaw relaxed.
Seeing Geneva like this sends little crackles of electricity teeming through my bloodstream. It’s a rush, having someone who’s always perfectly poised near boneless in my arms. I want to help her be this relaxed all the time, not when it’s just the two of us.
“I would, actually. I want to know everything about you.” Before Geneva can argue, I slip my hand beneath her ponytail and bring her mouth to mine.
We spend a long, long while kissing in the darkness of her closed gym before I finally lean back.
“Have you eaten?” I ask between ragged breaths.
“Yes.”
“Something other than Greek yogurt?”
Geneva glares at me, but her narrowing eyes only make my lips twitch upward.
“I’m all for healthy eating.” I lift my sweat-sodden shirt, gratuitously flashing my abs. “But it’s okay to vary your dietevery once in a while. Let me make you a stir fry when we get home.”
This is where Geneva should snap at me, but her gaze is trained on my stomach, the corner of her lip tucked between her teeth. On second thought, who needs a summer vegetable stir fry when I can devour Geneva’s lips for the rest of the night.
“Okay.” It’s the flicker of uncertainty in Geneva’s voice that has me dropping my shirt to brush a tender kiss over her forehead.
I’m going to take such good care of you.
My fingers give her legs a light squeeze. “Let’s go home.”
The rest of the evening is essentially a dream sequence. Geneva teases with me while I cook us dinner. We eat beneath the stars, the fireflies dancing in the distance. After we each shower, Geneva knocks on the door to the guest room, asking if I’d like to watch ‘our show.’ She only insults me six times while I make myself a hot chocolate to enjoy on the couch. Then when I tuck her beneath my arm, Geneva tilts her chin up and kisses my chocolatey lips.
“Hmm,” she murmurs, her gaze making an unhurried sweep of my face.
“Not bad?” I ask, setting aside my mug.
Her nose wrinkles, but it’s playful, not a Geneva-caliber sneer. “Still too sweet.”
“Give it time, darlin’.” My fingers frame her jaw, my heartbeat a slow, thick pulse in my chest. “You’ll come around.”
We don’t pay much attention to the rest of the show.
“Get in, Tex. You’re needed,” Carol Cook says the following Saturday as I’m patting down a layer of topsoil over the freshly planted baby boxwoods.
I glance over my shoulder toward where she’s idling in her white Pontiac and can’t help but smile. Carol is wearing a bright-red blouse with sunglasses the size of ski goggles, the sea breeze sneaking through the passenger window blowing wisps of white hair away from her face. If it weren’t a gorgeous eighty-degree day, I’d swear Carol was trying her hand at Mrs. Claus cosplay.
I stand, dusting my hands off on my shorts. “Needed for what?”
“Doctor stuff.”
The corner of my mouth twitches. “That’s specific.”
I assume she’s death-glaring me through her glasses, but all I can see is her pinched red-lipsticked mouth. After a few seconds of silence, I put my hands up in surrender. “Let me just wash up.”
After grabbing my keys to get my medical bag out of my truck, I slide into Carol’s tidy car. The powerful scent of wintergreen mints tickles my nose as I put on my seatbelt. Then I have to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from chuckling when she performs a crawling seventeen-point turn at the beach access dead end. A walker loops the end of the neighborhood street and is back on Sand Bend Road before we are.
“Care to tell me what’s going on?” I ask once she turns left toward the condo tower.
She mumbles something about overgrown idiots, her hands squeezing at ten and two. “I’d rather hear about your marriage. You haven’t been out much. Too busy trying for kids?”
I nearly choke on my spit at Carol’s frankness but set a small grin on my lips. “I’m not one to kiss and tell.”
Carol blows a raspberry in response.
