“Jesus, Uncle Ben, don’t you think it’s time we cut all this crap?” I say angrily. “Just be civil. Please.”
“For the record, Mr. Todd, that isn’t all I want from your lovely niece,” Tate says to Uncle Ben. His tone is less mild and more frank than it was a minute ago but still polite. “What I want is to be her boyfriend again. Publicly this time. For all the world to see. If she’ll have me.”
“Oh my God,” Daisy gasps excitedly.
Tate looks at me. My dad opens his mouth to say something but I snap up a hand and hold my palm up in his direction, silencing him before he can say a word. Tate winks at me. “You good with that, Firecracker?”
“I’m good with that, Tater Tot,” I reply and my chest feels tight because my heart is swelling so hard and so fast I can barely breath. “So good with that.”
And then Tate kisses me, hard and firm, but PG-13 because there are too many eyes watching us for anything else. When he ends the kiss and wraps his arm around me, I turn back to my dad and uncles. “Tate’s the best thing that has ever happened to me. He makes me happy. And he makes me crazy, in the best and sometimes worst possible way. He just makes me…more. And I’ve never been happier, so just like your mom—my grandmother—I am not giving that up. But I’m also not giving you guys up, so you have no choice but to learn to live with it.”
“Now if you’ll all excuse us, we have to go fix that basket and give my family the same speech,” Tate says. “Have a good night.”
Daisy is clapping wildly as Tate guides me away, toward the other side of the park. When we’re out of sight and earshot of my family I stop him. He looks down at me with his smirkiest smirk. The one I love and hate with equal passion. “I was good, wasn’t I? That was some award winning, high quality romantic content right there.”
“Yeah, you knocked it out of the park, Romeo,” I tell him and I sound sarcastic but my smile says I actually mean it. “Except the kiss was lacking.”
“What?” he gasps.
“Yeah, a little lackluster. Boring, really,” I say and fake a yawn.
He grabs me by my waist and tugs me right up against him and then he kisses me again. His lips claiming mine with force. His tongue stroking mine with abandon as I fist his jersey in my hands and try not to moan. “Better?”
I have to catch my breath before I can answer him. “It’ll do.”
He laughs at my fake nonchalance and pulls me into a hug. I cling to him tightly, because I can—right here in public with half the town wandering by, I can claim Tate Adler as mine. And even more amazing is the fact that I want to, more than anything else in the world. Whoever said your world can change on a dime really wasn’t kidding.
“We really do gotta get the stuff into the basket before the auction starts,” Tate tells me and ends the hug, only to take my hand in his as we keep walking.
“Is your family here? Do they know about Marty?” I ask him and glance up to see his reaction because it’ll likely tell me more than his verbal response will.
Tate’s smile fades and his jaw tightens as he nods. “Yeah. I told George I know and he lost his shit on me, but then he called my dad in from the orchard and sat him down and told him everything. There was a lot of yelling.”
“I’m sorry,” I say not because I feel responsible but because I sympathize.
“They’re still at the farm, talking it out. I think it’s gonna be okay in the end. One day. Just not today.”
I give his hand a squeeze. Jace, Raquel and Louise come into view a few feet away, and Tate smiles down at me and winks. “Ready to profess your undying love for me again, this time in front of my family?”
“Who said anything about love?” I quip.
“You didn’t have to say it.” He shrugs. “You’re head over heels for me. I know it.”
Our eyes meet and I really want to come up with some zippy burn about his ego or something but for the first time in my life, I’ve got nothing. He dips his head down a little so he can whisper by my ear. “Don’t worry, Firecracker, if this was a competition it’d be a draw because I’m skates over helmet for you too.”
I scrunch up my nose. “Did you just make that up?”
“Yeah. Another winner huh?”
“No. God no,” I say with a laugh.
“Okay, how about I just stick with the basic fact that I’m falling in love with you then?”
Oh my God.
“Really, Tate?” Raquel’s voice cuts through this perfect moment like a lawn mower ripping through a quiet Sunday morning. “After all this shit blowing up with our family today you’re going to add this silly fling with her on top of it all?”
“Raquel, your cousin just told me he is falling in love with me and unfortunately for you, that makes me way more than a fling,” I announce. “So feel free to bitch about it, but do it somewhere else. We’re having a moment over here.”
