He swings the door open and leaps out of the car, rushing around to my side and opening the door for me before I even have a chance to unbuckle. “I knew you’d be excited, but I didn’t think you’d bethisexcited. Is it the carryout or the porch swing that did it for you?”
“It’s all of it,” he says, clearly telling the truth. “How long has the food been sitting there for?” He skeptically inspects the scene for a moment.
“Hopefully not too long. I had Dani’s help.” I pull my phone out of my pocket to glance at her last text, then hold it out to show Andrew. “Yup, she dropped it off not even five minutes ago. It should still be hot.”
“This is incredible!” Andrew rushes toward the porch swing I found through very tedious research. It sits on the back end of a cabin across the lake from our houses. It has a perfect view of the water and is very secluded as the cabin is surrounded by trees.
I came across the cabin by a happy accident. I spent hours and hours searching for a porch swing near us the day we had thunderstorms a few weeks back, but it was only when I got tired of looking and decided to look up the priceof one of my favorite houses on the lake that I came across this one for sale on Zillow. It’s currently uninhabited, which works out perfectly for us.
Before Andrew makes it to the swing, he pauses abruptly and turns back toward me. He closes the distance between us and pulls me in for a hug, placing a kiss on my forehead. “You’re incredible.” His soft smile melts me into a puddle of goo on the ground.
I shake my head at him. “Andrew, you’re the one who’s been doing all these grand gestures for me all summer. You deserve this. It’s time I show you how much you mean to me.”
We walk, hand in hand toward the porch swing, and I feel the anticipation building inside of me. Yes, I found a porch swing to match our song. Yes, I got him carryout from his favorite Italian restaurant, but there’s still one item sitting on the bench that he hasn’t seen, not to mention the goodies I have stowed away in the car.
He sits down and picks up the boxes, trying to read the handwriting on the top one to figure out whose food is whose.
I sit down on the other side and pull the speaker out from underneath the swing, turning it on and quickly queuing up some music on my phone.
Before I hit play, I hear Andrew’s breath hitch. “What is this?”
My stomach does a small somersault.I hope this goes over the way I expected.I nod my head down at the envelope. “I gave one of my coworkers one of your stories. She called me and talked my ear off about how much she loved it for a solid twenty minutes, without even letting me squeeze in a word.” I laugh a little, nerves still eating away at me. “I haven’t read what’s in the envelope, but she wanted me to give it to you.”
His eyes grow wide. “You gave someone at the publishing company one of my stories? And she liked it?”
I nod, fighting back the hopeful smile that is trying to makeits way onto my face right now. “You better rip that thing open before I lose all self-control and do it for you.”
He eagerly tears into the envelope and reads it silently, killing me a little, or a lot, as his face doesn’t give away a hint of emotion.
After a minute, he turns to me and kisses me. “Thank you, Em.”
“What’d it say?” I sputter. “Is it good news?”
His casual expression breaks into one of elation. “She says she wants the rest of my stories. She thinks they have the potential to be published, and she even thinks it would sell wonderfully as a series. She has an agent in mind she regularly works with who is willing to represent me and help me market theseries,” he explains, emphasizing the last word. “She wants the series!”
Upon hearing his words, I finally exhale. “Oh my gosh, Andrew! That’s amazing! I’m so proud of you! I told you a year ago, you’d be one hell of a writer, and here you are, on your path to beingpublished.”
I emphasize the last word, making sure he doesn’t allow this victory to go unrecognized. Andrew can be too humble for his own good.
His gaze meets mine. “I wouldn’t be here without you. You were my inspiration through all of this, and you helped push me to get back into it.”
“That’s what I’m here for,” I wink at him, and his eyes go dark.
My heart rate picks up, and I reach toward him, grabbing hold of his shirt and pulling him in closer to me. When my lips meet his, we share a clear hunger for one another. His hands are on my back and then in my hair, pulling me closer. His tongue slips into mine, softly teasing me. It’s as though we are both desperately trying to become one because the thought of being apart from each other any longerwill break us.
When we finally pull apart, I straighten my hair and mutter between breathy gasps, “So should we eat before the food gets cold?”
He smiles and pulls me back in for another kiss before responding, “Yeah, I guess so.”
Andrew dives right into his fettuccini alfredo while I swirl my spaghetti noodles around on my fork, taking a bit more of a dainty approach to my meal.
I can’t help but feel a weight slowly piling onto my shoulders. I am glad this day has turned around and become so positive, but there’s still one more item that’s nagging at me.
“Andrew—”
“Hey, Em?—”
We laugh nervously at our unified attempt to start a conversation. “Go ahead.” He nods.
