he’s holding me.
We stay like that for a long time, naked and tangled up together. I stroke his back and his hair. He occasionally presses kisses against my neck and shoulder. Finally he lifts up enough to meet my eyes.
I smile at him rather sappily.
He smiles back. “I love you, baby.”
“I love you too.”
“This is...” He clears his throat. “This is it for us. Right?”
“Right.” I smooth down a mussed section of his hair. “This is forever, as far as I’m concerned.”
I can see him release a little breath. “Good. Because forever is what I want.” He pauses, licking his lips. “I wanted to tell you something.”
“What is it?” I have no idea what to expect.
“My name.” He drops his eyes and then raises them again, looking just slightly sheepish. “My real name. Before I changed it. It’s Canterbury. Richard Canterbury. I’ve never told anyone in the world that before.”
For a moment I’m genuinely afraid I might melt into a puddle of pure sentiment, but I manage to keep it together enough to say, “You can be anyone you want to be, Richard. You can call yourself whatever you want. I love the man you really are.”
“That’s who I’m going to be,” he murmurs, slightly hoarse. “For the rest of my life. With you.”
EIGHT SATURDAYS LATER, I’m walking into Richard’s coffee shop at eight thirty in the morning with my laptop so I can work from there for a few hours.
It’s not too busy yet, but Richard is helping out behind the counter. He usually does in the mornings.
Melanie takes my order, and I walk over to the far end to wait as Richard fixes my mocha (since I’m in the mood for something sweet today). He brings it over with a smile, leaning over the counter to kiss me.
“I thought you were going to sleep in today,” he says.
“I tried. But I really want to get this project done, so I couldn’t relax. Give me a couple of hours to work before you come over to join me.” My current client is rather annoying, so I’m trying to get the work done quickly so I can get the man out of my life.
“Got it. Two hours without bugging you.” He gives me a little quirk of a smile. “But it would help if you wouldn’t look quite so irresistible.”
I roll my eyes at him since I don’t look irresistible at all this morning. I’m wearing leggings, an oversized top, and I went one too many days without washing my hair, so I had to pull it into two braids to hide how bad it looks.
He leans over to kiss me again, murmuring into my ear, “You always look irresistible to me.”
So I’m smiling like a dope as I take my mocha back to the corner table by the window where I always sit (except a few irritating times when the table was already taken by someone else).
I work for a couple of hours and end up getting quite a bit done. When I’m at home, I can find about a million things to do other than work, but here there’s really nothing but looking around or talking to Richard. Since Richard is staying away from me as I requested and there’s not much action here today, I have no choice but to focus.
I’m feeling good about what I’ve done so far when I glance at the time and am surprised that it’s almost eleven. There’s a line now waiting to order, but someone else has come in to work behind the counter. I look around and see Richard across the room, wiping down a table he’s just cleared.
He must have sensed me watching because he looks over just then, flashing me a smile. He comes over to sit at the other chair at my table, still holding on to his cleaning cloth.
“You seemed to be working pretty well,” he says.
“Yeah. I got a lot done. I think I can finish this by Monday.”
“Good. Dump that guy as soon as you can.”
“I will. I really don’t like him at all. He’s already sent me three more emails this morning. I’m usually better at spotting bad clients and not taking their jobs. I’m not sure how this one snuck up on me. I’ve usually got a pretty good intuition for assholes.”
Richard chuckles, looking warm and relaxed and satisfied. Happy. It does my heart good to see him like this. “Well, I don’t know about that. You didn’t spot me, did you?”
“You