When we finally break apart, breathing heavy, Darcy looks at me with kiss-swollen lips and a flush high on her cheeks. “Mike,” she breathes. “I missed you. So much.”
“Darce.” I hug her to me again, fitting her against me like the piece I’ve been longing for even after so many years. “I missed you, too.”
PENNY’S HERO
CHAPTER 1
PENNY
“I forgot to ask, has anyone farted in your face yet this week?”
As soon as my question’s out, Mitch’s smile stretches into a wide grin. Chuckling, he replies, “As a matter of fact, yes. Just this morning.” He sets his fork on his dessert plate and leans forward as he adds, “It was a bad one, too. Probably an eight out of ten on the toxicity scale.”
“An eight out of ten?” I widen my eyes in mock amazement. “Thatdoessound pretty bad.”
It’s not that I’m endlessly amused by people farting. I’m thirty-three-years-old, after all, not thirteen. But I discovered early on that it’s a question guaranteed to make Mitch laugh, which is why I ask it so often.
Mitch laughing is one of my favorite things.
His entire face lights up with it, taking years from his features. His eyes lighten from chocolate brown to sparkling amber. His already-deep voice somehow dips even further, setting off flutters of excitement in my belly.
And his smile? It’s impossible to resist. No matter how bad my day might have been, no matter what I’ve been worrying about, his smile makes everything better.
So at least once a week, I regress to a teenager and ask Mitch if one of his patients at his chiropractic practice farted on him, which happens far more often than I would have imagined.
A few months ago, when I voiced my surprise, he explained,“It’s natural, when I’m doing some of the adjustments, that some trapped air might be released. It startled me the first couple times it happened, but now I’m used to it.”
Suffice it to say, if I ever need chiropractic work, Iwon’tbe going to Mitch. If I let a stinky fart rip in the face of my friend slash sort-of-boyfriend I’d fling myself off the nearest cliff out of sheer humiliation.
“Itwaspretty traumatic,” Mitch agrees solemnly. Then he reaches across the table and takes my hand, his much larger fingers wrapping around mine.
The laughter in his eyes shifts to something softer. More affectionate.
“The only thing that got me through,” he continues, “was the thought of seeing you tonight.”
My heart jumps.
My breath catches.
I’ve seen that look in his eyes more and more often over the past month. It’s a look that clearly says he wants more than what we have right now.
When we went on our first date six months ago after more than a year of dancing around it, I told Mitch I wanted to keep things casual.“Dates are fine,”I told him,“but I’m not looking for anything long-term right now. I’m just not ready.”
Six months ago, he readily agreed.“Of course,”he assured me.“We’ll take things as slow as you want.”
Maybe it was naive of me to think he’d be okay keeping things casual indefinitely. But then I’d remember how reluctant my previous boyfriends were to commit, and I just assumed Mitch would be the same way.
But I should have known better than to lump Mitch in with the losers I dated in the past. Guys like Davis, Glenn and Mark—cheater, liar, and drug-addicted cheater, respectively—werenothinglike Mitch.
My exes ranged from bad to terrible. But Mitch is the complete opposite. He’s kind. Funny. Polite. He owns his own home. He has a great job. He’s a volunteer firefighter, for Pete’s sake. And he treats me better than any other man I’ve dated—always insisting on paying, picking me up and dropping me off every time, helping me with little repairs around my house, and even buying me little giftsjust because.
So I guess it shouldn’t come as a surprise that he would want the things my exes didn’t.
Actual labels for each other, like boyfriend and girlfriend.
Going on trips together. Being his plus one at weddings.
Talking about the future in terms of months and years instead of days or weeks.
