When the fireworks started, Brody slid behind the bar to stand with me.He came up against my back, and I felt my body relax, like it recognized him faster than my brain did.
“Hey,” he murmured, breath warm at my temple.
“Hey.”
The first big bloom cracked open over us, white light stuttering into gold, then another, then a red one that looked like it was raining glitter.I felt like I was exactly where I was supposed to be.
So I turned, tugged him closer by the front of his shirt, and said the bravest thing I’d said all summer: “I’m going to kiss you now.”
His smile was perfection, devastating, yes, but also gentle, like he was relieved to finally arrive here with me.“It’s about time.I thought you’d never do it.”
We paused there, a breath’s width between us, eyes saying a thousand things I didn’t have to translate.Then I closed the distance.
If a first kiss has a sound, the fireworks overhead would be the soundtrack.It tasted like summer, citrus, strawberries and beer, and something purely him, and it felt inevitable, like our bodies had been practicing this moment for years without telling us.He caged my face in his palms, and I rose to my toes, and the crowd and the noise and the heat dissolved into the singular truth of his mouth learning mine.It wasn’t hurried.It was reverent.It wasours.
When we broke, he chased one more kiss, softer, a punctuation mark, then pressed another to the corner of my mouth and one to the tip of my nose like he was cataloging places to return to.
My whole body buzzed, electric and new.
I was smiling before I heard myself say it, the words tumbling out on a laugh that sounded a little like wonder: “If I asked you to marry me, would you make love to me?”
Brody laughed, a helpless groan caught in it.His forehead rested against mine.“You cannot weaponize proposals, Morgan.”
“Noted,” I whispered, giddy and so so turned on.
The crash came like a slap behind us, cases of empties toppling, glass clattering, a ripple of startle moving through the patio.I flinched hard.Brody pivoted, instincts first, twisting in front of me.A few bottles rolled, spinning to a stop at the base of the bar.Whoever had knocked them over was already gone, just a smear of movement at the edge of the crowd, or maybe that was my fear jumping to paint a target.
“I’ve got it,” I said automatically, reaching for the cases.
He caught my wrist, gentle but absolute.“No.If there’s broken glass, I don’t want you near it.”He squeezed once, like he was reassuring me, then released my arm.“I’ll grab the bin and the broom.”
He took three steps, turned back as if he’d remembered something essential, and kissed me again, quickly, like a habit he already had, mouth, nose, forehead.“Stay put.”
I watched him go, broad shoulders, steady stride, and allowed myself one long breath of a thought I didn’t try to shove away:Please let the rest of my life look exactly like this, light and laughter and work and ordinary moments handled by extraordinary care, and him, always him, turning back to kiss me like it’s the first thing he learned to do.
Behind the bar, the fireworks continued to puncture the sky open, red trailing to silver, white falling like rain.Someone cheered.Someone called for two more pints.Adam laughed, and I realized he'd been standing behind us the whole time.
“Palmer fireworks inside and out, HR’s filing the paperwork as we speak,” I elbowed him without looking away from the spot where Brody disappeared into the pub.
I felt it again then, a needle-prick of attention sliding across my skin.
Somewhere behind the patio, I swear I heard a camera shutter click...or maybe that was just one of the bottles settling.
I couldn't explain or justify it.Just a feeling...Just the sense of something being off.
I straightened my shoulders, palms flat on the cool bar wood, and reminded myself who I was: Cassidy Morgan.Not a secret.Not a mistake.Not a thing to hide.I was safe with people who cared about me.People who proved they would always keep me safe.
I was a woman who had chosen a path for herself.A woman who had just chosen to kiss her future in the middle of her town, with the sky igniting above her.
A woman who wrote her way into the light and then stepped into it.
“Hey,” Adam said softly, catching the shift in my face.“You good?”
I turned, letting the anxiety leave my body and smiled, small but real.“Yeah.I think I really am.”
Chapter 44
July stretched itself out slowly, like the world had decided to give me room to breathe.The fireworks kiss on Canada Day was still stitched into me, a live wire I couldn’t stop touching, but what followed wasn’t loud.It was quiet.It was sweet.It was real.
