“Yeah, I deduced that.” I point to the window. “Blizzard?”
“It’s just a few flurries.” He stomps down the steps. “Birdie, you have to know I didn’t—” He flails his hands like a chicken as he struggles to find his words. “It wasn’t?—”
“Which one of your sisters booked this place?” Those sweet, meddling women. “Or was it your mother?”
“My mother,” he growls, marching over to his bag where he rips through it, looking for something.
“Arlo.” I take a sip of my drink before setting it down to walk over to him, careful not to impede his mission.
“I know it’s in here.”
“Arlo.” I lay a hand on his shoulder.
He freezes, his phone in his grip. “This isn’t what I planned.”
“I know.” I tug him closer to me, wrapping my fingers in the edges of his flannel. “It’s okay.”
“It is?”
“I think we are on the fourth date,” I tell him. It’s the right thing to say, because his shoulders instantly relax and his hands settle on my hips, his warmth bleeding through my clothing.
“What was the third?” he whispers, his beer scented breath ghosting over my senses.
“The drive,” I whisper back, drawing him closer until our lips are but a breath away.
“Birdie,” he murmurs, and it’s like a dam breaks inside me. I tug him down, my lips finally locking with his.
When I was a little girl and Gram read me fairy tales, the kiss was always my favorite part. Sure, the fall for the other person made my stomach flutter and my young mind soar with fantasies. But it was that very first kiss when the two main characters confessed their love that I lived for. That I breathed for. So much builds up to that moment where they finally surrender to each other.
Love is in that first fairy-tale kiss, and as Arlo’s lips press against mine softly before a groan escapes him, I know he’s it for me.
My head spins, not with lust, not with desire, but with so much love that tears spring behind my eyelids and my body sways into him. My heart swells, and all he’s done is capture my lips with his.
That’s when it happens.
The moment I will always remember.
Just as his tongue slips past the seam of my lips to tangle with mine, I sob, and all that pent-up emotion of denying myself touch for so many years comes pouring out of me.
In one giant snot bubble.
Ladies and gentlemen, I can’t make this stuff up even if I tried, because it just so happens that at the right moment, Arlo licks said snot.
Horrified, I pull back from him far too fast and tumble head over heels, literally and figuratively, over a chair where I roll right onto the floor, my head slamming against the ancient hardwood.
Breathless, mortified, and I admit, a little woozy, I heave out a breath and stare at the high ceiling, feeling a knot form on the back of my head.
Cautiously, I glance at Arlo, who stares at me for a moment before he rushes to my side, his hands flailing like he isn’t sure if he should touch me.
I might combust into flames of embarrassment if he does.
Finally, he drops his hands at his sides as he gapes down at me. “I wasn’t expecting you to fall for me after our first kiss.”
I hiccup a sob because this isn’t at all how that first kiss should have gone. It was moving along perfectly, a storybook fairy tale that I would remember for the rest of my life and tell our grandbabies.
Well, that escalated quickly.
I sob even more.
