“Murphy, here’s the thing,” I said, turning to look at her. Her eyes met mine for a second before her gaze dropped to the carpet. “Look at me,” I told her, and when her red-rimmed eyes locked onto mine, I said, “The thing is ... I love you.”
The weight that had been sitting on my chest was back in earnest. Pressure rang in my ears.Does she love me too?
“I don’t deserve your love,” she said, squeezing my hand back. “Ben, what I did was awful. I should have stood up to my parents in the Bean, told them we had plans. Then I dragged you to the inn with them, when it should have been just us. They were terrible to you and me, and I let it go on. The thing is ...”
I thought she was going to say she loved me back, but she continued to ramble.
“I like Vermont. It’s growing on me. The syrup, the honey, and all the trees. The weather. My boots,” she said, looking at her feet, and then her gorgeous green eyes met mine again. “And you.”
The weight fell away from my chest, and my heart soared with hope.
“I don’t belong in my parents’ world,” she said firmly. “I never want to go back there, and I told them so the next morning. I like serving coffee and helping Hunnie. I want to be here for Gigi’s wedding, and strangely, I think your sister and I could be friends. Apparently, these boots are made for staying.”
Her words seeped into places I didn’t know existed. Tiny crevices where I held my feelings tight.
“Murphy,” I said quickly. “There are some things I should tell you—”
“No, let me finish. I need to apologize and make this right. You see, I went to see Hunnie and she told me this story, actually it was a lesson from her grandmother, about the sweet in your life and holding on to it. Ben, I want to hold on to you because you’re my sweet.”
I needed to tell Murphy what I’d just signed, but my mouth had a mind of its own and found its way over to her lips. We kissed with all the pent-up emotions we’d been struggling with, and I had no idea how long we stayed like that.
Minutes melted into each other as I made love to Murphy’s mouth. At first, we were tender and then we weren’t, punishing each other’s mouths with the tension of this past week.
Finally, when we needed to breathe and I was certain her lips were bruised, I broke away, panting. Still on the floor, my ass full of pins and needles, I blurted, “I don’t know the right way to say this, but I’ve been hired to work on a full exercise and nutrition line, complete with an app and training program.”
“Ben, that’s amazing,” she said, her palm cupping my cheek.
“The thing is ... it’s going to take me away from here. From my family, and now, I guess, from you.”
“Where are you going?” Her eyes wide, she swallowed hard.
Feeling like the worst kind of jerk, since she’d only confessed to liking Vermont moments before, I sighed. “New York.”
“What?” Her question was quiet, but the pain in it was clear. “The one place I thought I’d never have to see again.”
“Brooklyn, actually,” I said to clarify, and this got me a reaction I didn’t expect.
Murphy tipped her head back and let out the loudest laugh I’d ever heard from her. “Brooklyn?”
I nodded. “Yeah, I’ve already rented a place there. I’m going to mostly work on the app and nutrition stuff, but I’ll also see patients two or three days a week and operate one day a week. It’s a heavy schedule, but I’m young and up for it. Then I can decide which is the better match for my life, because I can’t keep up with both forever. But ... I don’t get why you’re laughing.”
Her reaction had totally confused me. I didn’t know if she thought the idea of a country bumpkin like me living in New York wasn’t plausible or what.
Smiling at me as she pushed her hair behind her ear, she then ran her hand down my cheek again. “Because this is the cherry on top. My parents already find you below their standards, you know, being a doctor and all that, and the only thing worse to them than Brooklyn is Queens.”
I swallowed hard and took a deep breath. “Are you saying you’d come with me? I’m sorry, that’s too much to hope for,” I said, more for myself than her. I’d take her with me in a heartbeat. “Would you at least visit me? I guess that’s a more appropriate suggestion, right? Is that what you meant?”
Murphy shook her head, giving me a small smile. “Well, I meant I would visit, but if you’re offering for me to come, um, I wanted to tell you that I was just offered a social media job for a nail polish company. I negotiated the job to be remote, to help build my portfolio, and since it’s freelance, I can do it anywhere. I was going to do it from here. Which is why I was prepared to tell you I’d move here, permanently, but now you’re off to Brooklyn.”
Unable to find the right words, I kissed her again, telling her what I wanted to say with my mouth and tongue, running my hand up and down her back as she leaned into me.
“I don’t want you to visit, Murph,” I murmured against her lips.
“You don’t?”
“Selfishly, I want you with me all the time. You could do marketing there, make a name for yourself on your own. Remember your Brooklyn romance book and how you thought you’d never have your own love story? You can—I mean, you are. You’re having it, and it could be in Brooklyn.” My words came out so jumbled, I clarified. “You won’t have any expenses because you can live with me.”
This made her pull away, and I cursed myself mentally. I’d come on too strong, suggesting too much, too soon.
