“Brigham, I like you too.” She giggled into my chest and I kissed her temple. “Weird response after you farted, but whatever. I’m not judging.”
“You little shit. I did not.” I sighed and tickled just below her ribs, and she let out a loud holler, drawing attention our way. She swatted my hand and pushed me back, pointing at me with her pursed lips.
“No tickling. Not in public.”
“But inside?”
“Maybe.” Her tough façade faded and the teasing tone changed to a more serious one. “Can I ask a question about…us?”
My heart stopped, worried she wanted to end it because of my shitshow. I wouldn’t blame her, but I really didn’t want to end it. “Sure,” I said, hating how my muscles tensed and I prepared myself for the worst. “Shoot.”
“Uh, this is awkward.”
“Sarah, ask it.”
“You know this whole thing is new for me. So, I don’t know the rules and Megan said I shouldn’t even ask it, but I’m hoping you’ll take pity on me. But are we…together? Like, obviously not boyfriend-girlfriend, because that’s childish and dumb. But you just said you like me, and I’m obviously into you…” She trailed off, looking at the ground. She couldn’t see my huge-ass smile.
“Blue, we aredefinitelytogether.”
She looked up and her lips curved up. I hated that I couldn’t see her eyes but I continued talking. “I have no plans on seeing anyone else. I know this is new for both of us, but it’sjustyou.”
“It’s just you, too, for me,” she mumbled and I reached over, took her chin and kissed her. Right there, in the middle of the street, because I wanted to taste her. She let out a little squeal and I loved it.
“Glad we got that covered. Does it ease your mind a bit?”
“Yes.”
“How about we finish this walk and go explore third base again?”
“Big fan of that plan, Monaghan. Big, big fan.”
Chapter Fifteen
Sarah
Ethan hadn’t been this quiet, for this long, for years. It unnerved me. The constant chatter of his was one of the reasons I adored him, but the silence grated on my fragile nerves the longer he stared at the plan.Blue Bells Boarding plan.Megan propped herself up on one of the stools with her arms wrapped around her knees as she too waited to hear Ethan’s thoughts.
My poor fingernail bled from the nibbling, but I couldn’t just not do something while we waited and waited.
Finally, after fifteen minutes of silence, Ethan clappedloudly. “We can do it.”
“You’re sure, sure?”
“Yup. The ten thousand can go toward the down payment for the location, and the funds from the GoFundMe—which, brilliant idea from the baseball dude—has ten thousand that can go toward converting the back rooms to large kennels for the rescues. We need to get the right licenses, but leave that up to me.” He held up his now-warm beer and cheered me and Megan. “We’re doing this thing!”
“Oh my god.” I hugged him hard, and my eyes stung as tears formed. “What about paying people? I need a groomer and to pay you two.”
“When you receive the next ten, you’ll need to put it into a payroll account. Luckily, that woman, Vee, came through by providing us funds for the website so we don’t need to worry about that. But besides payroll, we’ll need to carve out a budget for utilities, internet, that sort of stuff. If the event goes well with your athlete friends, then maybe we’ll get more donations to help get this thing running.”
“Ethan, you are a godsend.” I smacked a kiss right on his cheek and turned to Megan for a huge hug. “I don’t know how I would survive without you both.”
“It’s true. We rock,” Megan said, patting my head while I cuddled into her chest. “We talked about it, Blue, and we’re okay not getting paid for our part.”
“Um, no. Not acceptable.”
“We can put it on our resume as helping get a business up and running. This is the perfect opportunity for me to build my skills in marketing. Better than any internship I could find. And Ethan makes enough playing video games.”
He shrugged. “I do. We’d rather the money go toward finding other employees and getting benefits.”
