HARPER
That evening,Harper was sitting on her couch on cloud nine, and nothing could bring her down right now. At breakfast, Marcus insisted on taking a photo together to text his family – and had put it on Instagram. He publicly claimed her, putting his stamp of approval on her as his wife… and she was living in a fairytale of pink fluffy clouds, happy little birds singing, and if a unicorn strutted past her in the next few minutes?
She couldn’t care less.
She was married to Marcus Shaw – her biggest crush and the hottest hockey player to ever hit the ice. That shaggy black hair, those pale green eyes… yeah, her heart was mincemeat the moment they were saying their vows.
Then came the kiss.
There was no way she was missing that chance – and what a kiss it was! She knew he’d balked at public displays of affection when she’d lobbed it out there between them, but boy-oh-boy did he take it to the next level! They’d been married for eight hours, and she was still reeling from that single kiss.
Her phone rang.
Seeing his photo pop up, she answered it immediately, trying to keep the silly sighs and sing-song voice from spilling out of her.
“Hello?”
“Hey – are you home?”
“I am,” she agreed nervously. “I just finished my TV dinner and…”
“Oh.”
“Why? What’s up?”
“You need to get a bag together, and I’ll text you my address.”
“You want me to come over?” she whispered, closing her eyes in sheer happiness at his words.
“Um, you’re my wife, remember?” he said huskily over the phone, and she nearly drooled on herself. “My wife lives with me, so grab your things and come on over so we can talk about schedules, work, and life in general privately.”
“Marcus…”
“You’ve got slim fingers – can you wear a seven?” he interrupted – and she shot to her feet, racing to the kitchen to grab a tote bag that she used for groceries. She didn’t own a suitcase because she never traveled.
“Finger? No, I wear a size ten shoe.”
He muttered something under his breath – and her eyes grew wide as it finally clicked in her head.
“DID YOU GET ME A WEDDING RING?”
“Apparently, I should have gotten a set of hearing aids too – sheesh,” he exclaimed. “Can you warn a guy before you go supersonic or cross a thousand decibels? I think my eardrum is bleeding…”
She was speechless.
Marcus got her a ring, was asking her to move in, and all of her craziest wishes were slowly coming true.
“Hurry up,” he began again, ignoring her silence. “I ordered us a pizza, and I’m going to need to get to bed soon because I’ve got practice early tomorrow.”
“B-B-Bed?” she squawked brokenly – sounding almost like a chicken on crack, whatever that would sound like. Hearing his chuckle, her heart jump-started as she began shoving things in the tote bag frantically. Toothbrush, hairbrush, shampoo, socks, underwear, clothing… shoes. Oh gosh, she’d need shoes and her daily vitamins.
“I just sent my address, and the code is to get in the front gate. See you in a few minutes.”
Less than that,she thought excitedly, unable to wipe the smile from her face.
Pulling up to his place, Harper grabbed her bag from the back seat where it sat – and hesitated. Apparently, she was chunking all sorts of things in the bag because she’d grabbed her pepper grinder and an open box of Ziploc baggies.
Maybe ‘excited’ was putting it mildly.
