In short, life was perfect. Perfectly perfect. The kind of perfect that I would never, ever want to change because, no matter what Jack said, changealmostalways equaled awful.
I gave Jack a teasing glance over my shoulder. “I haven’t even told you about the pirates yet.”
He shook his head, disgusted. “Poor Lizzie. And where was Darcy when all of this bullshit was happening? Don’t tell me—off somewhere brooding about something, and practicing his inscrutable look for when he comes in at the eleventh hour to save the day.”
I stopped short and turned around, arms folded over my chest. “You will not,” I said in my most threatening voice—which, unfortunately, was not very threatening, especially when I was talking to the man I’d been in love with for the better part of a decade, “talk about Fitzwilliam Darcy in that dismissive tone, Jack Davidson Wyatt.”
Jack let out a long, low whistle. “Wow. Middle-namingandlast-naming me. Serious stuff.”
“It is.” I lifted my chin. “I have come to feel fond acceptance for your football-watching obsession, Jack. I have even learned to love your snoring?—”
“I donot?—”
“But this is a bridge too far,” I said. I was mostly—onlymostly—teasing, and the look in Jack’s eyes said he knew it… and found it all kinds of adorable… which was the best feeling in the world. “Since it’s a lovely day and I’m feeling magnanimous, however, I’ll accept your apology.” I rolled my hand in aget on with itgesture.
“Magnanimous,” Jack repeated slowly, testing the weight of the word on his tongue. He stepped closer, so his chest bumped against my folded arms, and he grasped my hips. “That’s quite the vocabulary word. And here I thought I sucked your brains out through your dick mere hours ago,Henry Hawkins Sunday?—”
My face went hot as flashfire memories of this morning seared my brain, which made it a little hard to come up with a witty retort… But it didn’t seem to matter anyway, since Jack’s eyes were busy scanning the area and his face wore a faraway, distracted expression.
“What?” I demanded, unfolding my arms so I could look around also, but I saw nothing except forest.
Jack shook his head, his gaze focused on me again. “Nothing,” he said, though the tiny frown between his eyebrows belied his words. “What was I saying?”
“You were apologizing for your thoughtless words about our lord and savior Fitzwilliam Darcy,” I reminded him. “At least, you’d gotten to the part where you saidHenry Hawkins Sunday, and I’m almost positive the abject apology part was forthcoming.”
He laughed. “Henry. Hawkins. Sunday,” he repeated, like each word filled him with delight. He slid his hands down my arms and laced our fingers together, then lifted my left so he could run his thumb over the shiny gold engagement bandthere. He tilted his head. “Have you considered what you want to do when we get married?”
“Do?” I blinked. “What do you mean, do? If you’re trying to distract me, Jack?—”
“I meant with our names. Like, you could go with Henry Hawkins Sunday-Wyatt. Or Wyatt-Sunday. Or just Sunday. Or just Wyatt.” Startlingly blue eyes met mine. “I don’t care what you choose, but I’d like to share a name with you, I think.”
I tried to suck in oxygen, but my lungs had forgotten how breathing worked and I ended up making a series of short gasping sounds. If Jack was trying to get out of apologizing… he was absolutely succeeding.
Total, unmitigated success.
“I mean, only if you’re into it.” He shrugged offhandedly, like it didn’t matter to him one way or another, though I was pretty sure this was a lie.
“You’d… become a Sunday?” I managed to whisper. “Really?”
“Of course.” His eyebrows rose. “Is that what you want?”
“I… yeah. Yes.” I couldn’t have stopped my smile if I tried. “I mean, let’s think about it for a minute and make sure, but… I want to share a name with you, too. I want to share everything.”
He grinned. “Good.” He wrapped our joined hands behind my back, pulled me against his chest, and lowered his mouth to mine…
Then stopped.
“Do you hear that?” he whispered against my lips. The frown was back on his face.
I paused and listened, then shook my head. “Nope.”
“I’d swear it was coming from over—” He lifted his head. “There. Hear it?”
If I strained my ears, I could just barely hear a faint, high-pitched noise. A bird call maybe. Or an animal.
“Do you think something got hurt?” I wondered, suddenly worried. “Come on, let’s look.”
I tugged Jack along the path toward home, stopping every so often to listen for the noise. Eventually, when we were so close to our house that I could see the chimney through the gaps in the trees, the sound became a bit louder. Closer.
