Page 109 of Small Town Firsts
And I planned on sitting there with her for years to come.
I got to the top of the path where it was just slightly elevated, and my breath stalled. She was there in the shadows, her hair was still down and dancing lightly in the breeze. Her back was to me as she used one foot to rock and the other was tucked under her as usual.
She was enough to trip my heartbeat—I had a feeling that would always be the case—but the darkened foliage and trees were alive with thousands of lightning bugs.
Fireflies.
The night glowed around her. The light led me to her and right then it solidified my future as if it were a bolt of lightning, not the mating call of some horny bugs.
Then again, that was us too. I was forever trying to light up the dark spaces that lingered around her. And sometimes I was just trying to show off so she’d laugh and try to get into my pants. Because my Kira needed laughter more than I realized.
My family had always been a constant, but they also encouraged me to go out and find my passions. They were loud and obnoxious, but I never wondered if they loved me. I knew I could go home and recharge, then go back out and find the next thing that excited me.
But Kira was different. She didn’t have that. She had Beckett for support, and me being jealous of that undermined what we could be as a couple. I needed to prove to her that I believed in us.
Right here, it showed me just how much she’d become a singular source of recharge and light for me at the same time.
My home.
My future.
Just like this orchard that challenged me, she was all that and more.
I slowly walked toward her and took everything in. Realizations should be savored especially when the love of your life was involved. The urge to blurt it out burned on the tip of my tongue, but just like the perfect cider, it was all about timing.
I stepped to her side of the swing and she looked up at me. Moonlight highlighted the slightly uptilted end of her nose, her cheekbones, and the line of her jaw. Her eyes glittered in thedark, a hint of gold glinting thanks to the warm glow of the fireflies.
“Did you find it?”
“It’s been here all the time.”
Her eyebrow arched. “We’re still talking cider, right?”
“You tell me.”
She swallowed hard. I could hear it in the quiet of the night. As my eyes adjusted to the night, I noticed more about her. The need and the uncertainty flitted over her face.
I’d wanted to make myself indispensable to her for the last ten days. But I’d been hiding in the busy work at both the taproom and the renovations on my cabin.
I hadn’t been able to dissuade Kain from buying my place. Mostly because he was using it as a project to distract himself from his grief. And I was using the manual labor to exhaust me so I could sleep without her.
Trying to wait her out.
Hoping she’d see that if I proved to her that I was serious about what we were building at the taproom, she’d open up to me again. Right now, I realized where I’d made the mistake.
It was exactly what she was used to with the men in her life.
Holding her at arm’s length.
Making it about work when it really needed to be about her.
I set the glass down on the small table beside the swing. She frowned up at me, then over at the glass. “Didn’t you bring that out for me to taste?”
“I did.” She reached for it and I shook my head, then sat beside her.
“It wasn’t what you wanted?”
“It’s perfect. Probably the best thing I’ve ever made.”
