I shook my head, just a little so I didn’t dislodge his hand while he was still willing to pet me.
“And we’ve had a really good day so far,” he continued. “And tonight is kind of perfect, right?”
I looked around. The venue was packed, but it was open-air and the weather was perfect and the sky was a hazy purplish hue, with only the faintest hint of fuzzy, dim stars beyond.
Landon was right; we’d had agreatday.
I’d be damned if I was going to be the one to ruin it.
I looked back down at him with a firm, serious scowl. “Tonight is completely perfect. Though... it might be the company.”
Landon cracked a smile, and as I looped my arms around the small of his back, he leaned into me. He wrapped his arms around my neck.
“Besides”—he planted a kiss on my lips—“you put me in your shirt.MaybeI want to put you in one of mine.” He tugged at the hem of the shirt I was wearing to make his point, and I could feel a strange, heated tingle at the corners of my jaw—that feeling that made me want to rub my scent all over him.
“Done,” I agreed instantly. Maybe I was too much of a big, intimidating predator to want to be anyone’s lap kitty, but Landon’s? I could get behind that. “Thank you. For the shirt, and for not letting me?—”
“Brood your way into missing out on an awesome concert?”
I snorted. “More like brood my way out of seeing how lucky I am to be here with you.”
Landon’s whole face went pink, but the color concentrated around his ears. I leaned down and kissed one of them, letting my lips drag their way across his warm cheekbone and down to his lips again.
He whined, his fingers twisting in my double-layered shirts as he dragged me in, and as the band started to play, it didn’t matter how many stars we could see in the sky or how many dollars I had in my bank account. Lights exploded all around us, and I grinned against his sweet mouth before he turned around.
The show was starting.
CHAPTER 19
LANDON
It was hard to sleep at all that night, after the day’s excitement, because I didn’t want it to be over, not ever. Still, there was only so late the body could keep going, even after the best day.
Maybe especially after a long day of walking and music and everything I loved.
I woke to the scent of coffee permeating the air, and it felt like one of those perfectly cozy fantasies about hot cocoa in front of the fire as it snowed outside. I was nice and warm in my own blankets, surrounded by the scent of Dean, and coffee, and just... warm. A different kind of warm than just having the heater running or a fuzzy blanket.
When Dean came back in, wearing just his boxers and carrying two mugs of coffee, it got even warmer, in more ways than one.
“Hey,” he said, swinging himself down onto the bed until his back rested on the headboard next to me, somehow without putting the drinks down or spilling a single drop of coffee. Then he handed me one. “Milk, right? You got a cappuccino, so I figured not so much sugar.”
I smiled as I took the cup he’d held out for me, pulling it against my chest and breathing deep. Perfect. How was he perfect?
“The poem on your fridge is pretty great,” he said, out of nowhere, before taking a drink and looking away.
Poem on my fridge?
Oh, he meant a silly magnetic word set I’d bought and screwed around with because the apartment had felt too empty.
Also, why was he acting shy all of a sudden?
“Um, thanks? I was just screwing around.”
“You write a lot?”
And that? Well technically, I did write a fair amount, or at least, I had once. I’d mostly stopped since things had settled in San Francisco, but especially when I’d been down back in Boston, I’d written a lot of my feelings down. I still had the stack of journals to prove it. I’d never much made that much effort to put it in any kind of specific poetry format with meter and specific numbers of beats—villanelles and I had not been best buds in college—but I had always liked words. Especially since most of the ones I used in work were utilitarian and boring, pretty ones had always felt like a luxury. So, freestyle poetry it had been.
I set my coffee on the nightstand, rolled out of bed, and started going through the boxes I’d put in my closet. It only took a moment to uncover the specific notebook I thought was there. A tiny thing with a wood pattern on the front, and an embossed gold foil leaf.
