Page 2 of From the Ground Up

“Yeah? Prove it.”

“How am I supposed to do that?”

“Oh, I have some ideas,” I say waggling my eyebrows.

She rolls her eyes but I can tell she’s not annoyed with me. “Of course you do. But it isn’t happening. Not out here in the open!”

I press against her. “Why isn’t it gonna happen though? It could. No one is out here.” I look around at the empty lot.

“It’s freezing! And yeah, you say no one is out here… who knows who’s lurking around the corner waiting to record us getting it on and uploading it to some porn site.”

She’s so ridiculous. “Fine. I’ll give you the freezing thing, but no oneisout here. I promise you that.” Not that I would fight her if she wanted to go through with getting a little freaky, but I would never, not in a million years, pressure her to do so. Nor do I want her plastered for the world to see. I’ll keep her to myself.

She pulls me back to her and snuggles in close. “I do like having you to myself,” she murmurs into my chest and, dammit it all, I start to feel emotional.

“Ilovehaving you all to myself.”

“Mmm…” she says as the song shifts once again to a slow song, and we continue to sway under the stars.

After we’ve danced for several songs, I realize we need to keep moving. We still have one more stop to make. The most important stop. So we pack up everything and climb back into the pickup. This time I don’t need to tell her to sit next to me; she slides next to me on her own, sitting close enough that our thighs are pressed against one another’s and she’s nestled tightly into the nook under my arm, and buckles up.

“Good girl,” I murmur and smile down at her then kiss the top of her head. She snuggles a little deeper in next to me and wraps her arm around my stomach.

“I’m a fast learner,” she says with a smile in her voice.

The next stop is the big one. I drive over to the side of town that houses a park where we have spent so much of our time. It’s a walking park rather than one with a playground, and in the fall it’s beautiful, all woods and leaves changing colors. In the winter time, it’s not quite the same but still pretty. The city comes in and clears walking paths from the snow and a huge sledding hill sits in one section of the park that kids have appropriately named The Monster. But no matter what time of year it is, the park is special to us. My nerves start to come back as she realizes where we’re going but still doesn’t question me. She trusts me.

I park and we both climb out silently. I take her gloved hand and curse the cold temperatures. I want to feel her palm in my palm, her fingers laced with mine with no barrier. Nothing between us. I reach into my front jeans pocket with my left hand and feel for the object that will either make or break the rest of our lives. Feeling the small circular object, I make a fist around it, hoping that what it symbolizes will create the calm in me that it needs to.

There were flurries falling from the sky this morning, and the smell of snow is in the air. But for tonight, the ground is still clear. We approach our bench, our feet making the last of the autumn leaves crunch beneath us. We sat on this bench at the end of our first date, and it’s also the place where my lips first touched hers. She instinctively takes a seat, knowing that’s where we were headed, and I follow suit. She’s in my head more than I like to admit, just like I’m in hers. I can see the wheels turning behind those gorgeous bright blue eyes of hers. She can’t hide from me. Never could. Never will be able to. And right now she’s probably thinking“Why in the world am I sitting out here in the freezing cold? My butt is like an ice cube.”

I chuckle to myself as I look down at her.

“What are you laughing at?” she asks, smiling.

“You. You’re not letting yourself just be. I know you’re cold, and you’re wondering what we’re doing here, but just bear with me for a few moments.”

“How did you know I was wondering that?”

My response is a raise of my eyebrows at her. Her cheeks are flushed in irritation with me — or maybe it’s just the cold — which I find cuter than anything, and she looks away before mumbling that I was right.

I lean over and kiss her lightly on the lips; she tastes of peppermint, as I knew she would. I saw her bite into a couple of her favorite comfort taffies on the way here. “You always taste so damn good,” I moan as I deepen our kiss. It’s impossible not to.

“It’s the taffies. I’ve been telling you for years they’re delicious.”

“Nope. It’s all you. It’s all you, my beautiful Tess.”

She takes a shuddering breath then climbs onto my lap, wrapping her arms around my neck and taking over our kiss. She pulls me down toward her, causing me to rest one of my hands on the bench next to her while my other wraps around her back. Our tongues tangle, our breaths becoming one.

After several moments, I reluctantly pull away. Whether she knows it or not, tonight is about more than a hot make-out session. I rest my forehead against hers for a moment. “You turn me out every time, Tess. Every single time.”

She smiles and lets out a breathy laugh. “I know the feeling.”

I suck in a deep breath and place her back on the bench then stand up, shaking my hands out slightly. These nerves are ridiculous.

She looks up at me questioningly. “Barrett?”

“Tess…” I begin as I drop to one knee.

---