A Guy Walks Into My Bar - Lauren Blakely Page 0,107
again.
I kiss the man I want to spend the rest of my life with.
And this kiss now? This is the greatest kiss of my life.
When we break apart, he’s beaming like the sun. That’s who he is. He curls his hands over my shoulders as he says, “I am so happy . . . you make me so happy. More than anything ever has. You. Just you.”
I quirk up my lips. “The feeling is completely mutual.”
And because we’re us, we do it again. PDA is pretty much our MO. We kiss over and over, and we’re most definitely putting on a show, and I don’t care, because he is where I want to be.
Then Maeve calls out, “Get a room, get a room.”
And we finally break the kiss.
Fitz wiggles his eyebrows at my friend, who’s now a few feet away. “It’s not a bad idea,” he says.
I gesture to the bar. “I shouldn’t leave. It’s my shift.”
Maeve laughs at me, puts her hands on my shoulders, and does her best to push me out the door.
“Go. Daisy’s here to help me out,” she says, gesturing to one of our bartenders. “Just go be with your man.”
I turn to her. “I’ll call you tomorrow. We’ll sort it all out.”
“We’ll sort it all out,” she repeats, then shoos me away.
I leave, take Fitz’s hand, and say, “So, did you hear the one about a guy who walks out of a bar? Out of a bar and into the rest of his story with the love of his life.”
“Sounds like a good story.”
“It’s a great one. It’s ours.”
47
Dean
When we turn on my street, I tug his hand to make him stop.
“What is it, babe?”
“There’s something I need to tell you,” I say, and when his eyes flash with worry, I shake my head and smile to reassure him. “It’s good. I promise.”
Fitz threads both his hands through both of mine. “Tell me.”
A flock of nerves takes flight inside me, but I find the guts to say what I need to say. “Next week, when I visit you—I’m still visiting you?”
“Damn straight.”
I swallow, then finish my confession. “I was planning on asking if you wanted me to move there. To be with you.”
He blinks. “Shut up,” he says, jerking me closer.
“It’s true. I was going to.”
“You were?” His voice is stitched with wonder.
“I was.”
“You were going to do that for me? For us?” Fitz asks, like I’ve told him he’s won the lottery.
“I talked to my father yesterday, and it was clear—crystal clear. I knew I had to do it. To ask you if you’d want me to join you.” I don’t know why I’m still nervous telling him this. He just asked me to marry him, so I shouldn’t be. But I am. Maybe because this is how I crack my heart open and let him see inside, like he did for me.
It’s one thing to say yes.
It’s another thing to ask.
And I want him to know what I’d do for him. That I’d have asked him to be with me too.
Fitz shakes his head in a kind of wild disbelief. He lets go of my hands and slides his palms up my chest, here on the street. “You keep doing this, Dean,” he says, his voice going to that low and smoky zone that I love.
“Doing what?”
“You make me fall more in love with you every single day,” he says, then he claims my lips in a kiss that leaves me woozy and lightheaded. “For the record, I love that you were going to ask to move to New York for us, and presumably move in with me, because I’m not letting you live anyplace else. But I need you to know that I want to be married to you more than I just want you in the same space as I am. I mean, I do want us to be in the same space. I want to wake up with you and go to bed with you and shower with you and shave with you. I want it all. But I don’t just want that. I want to be with you for the rest of my life, and the fact that you were willing to move for me just makes me love you harder.”
“I love you pretty hard too.”
“Speaking of hard things,” he says, arching an eyebrow as we resume our pace to my flat.