Playing a Player (Sweet Cravings #1) - Ivy Smoak Page 0,99

so happy. As he lowered me down, my torso slid against his. He kept his arms wrapped tightly around me as I looked up at him.

"I thought you never wanted to get married?"

"I don't think I had any idea what I wanted until I met you." He kissed me again.

There was a loud knock on the door. "Can we come in now?!" Jackson yelled.

I smiled up at Rory. "The door is unlocked, guys!"

Jackson ran into the room, followed by Connor, Emily, and Jim. I laughed as Jackson put his arms around us. "I knew you two would work it out," he said.

He was quickly followed by the rest of our friends, as they all embraced us in a big circle. I had felt so alone earlier. And now I had never felt so full. I don't think I had ever been happier in my whole life. Each big moment with Rory had made me feel like that. I couldn't help but think that each day going forward he would make me happier and happier. And he was absolutely right. At the end of the day, happiness was the only thing that mattered.

Epilogue

“It’s perfect,” I said. It probably looked like I was staring up at the freshly painted sign, but my eyes were glued firmly to my new husband’s butt. God did Rory look good in swim trunks. Although he insisted that he had to wear a shirt during our new ice cream shop’s business hours, I was pretty sure in a few more weeks he’d abandon the policy. After all…we were at the beach. No shirt, no shoes…who the hell cared? I sure didn’t. I preferred him without a shirt. And as far as I was concerned, the swim trunks weren’t necessary either.

Rory looked down at me from the ladder he was standing on. “Hey, eyes up here, Keira,” he said and waved his hammer in front of the sign.

I laughed. “I was talking about the sign.”

“Of course you were.” He stepped off the ladder and joined me on the boardwalk. “It really is perfect, though,” he said.

“Sure is.” The sign was great, but I was still talking about his ass. “I still can’t believe we’re actually doing this.” Sweet Cravings was scrawled across the top of our new storefront. Our new storefront. It felt like I was still dreaming. One minute we’d been touring all the beaches on the east coast during our honeymoon, and the next minute we were buying this shop on the Rehoboth boardwalk.

I never wanted our honeymoon to end, but eventually we’d have to go back to Philly. Our next venture was a catering company in the town where we’d met. But for at least this summer we were staying put. We had to get our new shop off the ground and make sure things were running smoothly before we left it in the hands of a manager. And I was going to enjoy every second of our summer here. I leaned into Rory’s side.

He wrapped his arm around me. “Now I have to bring it up one more time before we scare all the patrons away…are you positive these flavor names are the way you want to go?”

I stared at all the flavor names that were posted outside the storefront. “What’s wrong with the flavor names?”

“Um…nothing,” he said.

I laughed. “If we’re going to stand out, we need to do something different than the other five ice cream places on the boardwalk. This is going to be our thing.”

“Right. You don’t think our 100 unique flavors are enough?”

I shook my head. “Nope. We need the outlandish names too.” Outlandish was probably an understatement. Lots of them were sexual. Most of them inappropriate in one way or another. But all of them were hilarious and made sense. The awesome names were what made our shop stand out. “You got to have the final say on all the flavors because you’re the one with the discerning chef’s palette. And I got to do the naming because I’m the author in the family.”

“Well, if you think Sex in the Sand is a great name for banana ice cream with graham cracker crumbs, what do I know?”

“Exactly.”

Rory laughed and placed a kiss on the side of my forehead. “I’ve been meaning to ask. Remember that time Connor and I found you on the floor of that ice cream shop looking for your earrings?”

Kill me now. I had kind of hoped that once we got married we’d never talk about