Page 37 of Walkoff Wedding

She’s agonizingly quiet as she slips into the passenger seat of my truck, and I shut the door behind her. When I climb into the driver’s seat, I turn toward her.

“I think I shoul?—”

“Should we?—”

Apparently, we’re both still thinking about said kiss because our awkward words run together as we speak at the same exact time.

Her cheeks heat, and she ducks her head, tucking a stray piece of hair behind her ear. “Sorry, you go first.”

I hate that she’s too shy to look me in the eye, so I reach over the console between us and grasp her chin gently between my fingers, turning her to me.

Her gaze snaps to mine, and I watch her throat working as she swallows visibly.

“I should apologize for kissing you,” I start, my voice low. “But I’m not sorry, Addie. I’m just sorry that I didn’t run it by you first.”

The dark blue of her pupils dilates, darkening, and she shakes her head. “It’s okay. This is what married couples do. They… kiss.”

I nod. “Yeah, they do. They kiss. A lot.”

She’s my wife now. And I want to kiss her again.

A lot. Until she’s breathless and clutching onto me the way she did in that chapel.

Her nod mirrors mine as the air between us crackles and hums with an electrified charge. A brief moment that feels as if we can reach out and grasp it between our fingers as our eyes stay locked. I try to decipher the flickering of something in them. Time ticks by, but it seems to stand still all at once.

A shrill ring reverberates through the cab of my truck, and then the spell is broken. Addie jumps, fumbling for her cell phone.

When she finally picks it up with a shaky hand, she answers and puts it to her ear.

“H-i-i, Amos.”

I bite back a grin, bringing my hand to rub along my jaw to cover the twitch of my lips. She’s just as affected by this as I am. I shouldn’t like that as much as I do.

She doesn’t say much on the phone but nods along with whatever Amos is saying. Then, she says, “Sounds good. Thanks.”

Once she hangs up, she lifts her gaze to me. “Um… Amos says he’s going to drop Auggie off later. They’re apparently going for a walk and a pup cup. Like he needs more whipped cream. I’m going to have to get him a doggie treadmill soon or something.”

Chuckling, I shrug. “I could take him with me on my morning runs, if you’re cool with it? It can be a guys-only thing.”

Addie’s laugh singsongs through the truck, and she nods, rolling her plump lips together. “He would probably hate it, but I think he could absolutely benefit from exercise.”

“Cool. We’ll make it a thing, then. Do you wanna go pick up your stuff? Not that I mind you wearing my clothes or anything, but you probably need supplies for class?”

“Yes. And I need to get Auggie’s things. I don’t have much, so it probably won’t take me long to throw the important things in a bag.”

“There’s no rush. You can put me to work.” I wink, relishing the shy smile she offers.

After she buckles in, I turn my truck on and put the address she gives me into the GPS before pulling out onto the highway.

It’s only a few minutes from the Quarter, so it doesn’t take us long to pull into a short driveway right off the road.

“This it?” I ask her as I pull to a stop at the end of the driveway.

“Yep. I… live over the garage though,” she says as we pull up in front of a two-story Victorian with peeling shutters and massive white pillars. There’s a small oval-shaped window above the garage, and that’s where she points. Then, she turns to the building next door and points at the quaint little building beside the house. “And that’s the bakery.”

I park in front of the garage, and we walk to the side. She pushes the side door to the garage open after unlocking it, and I follow closely behind her into the stairwell.

“It’s kind of a mess, but…” She trails off once we make it to the top of the stairs and into the open studio floor plan that’s her room. She’s not wrong—the walls are painted with what I think used to be a bright yellow paint but is now dull, and peeling, and the beam that’s hanging in the center of the room looks unstable at best, but… it’s apparent she’s spent a lot of time making the space hers.

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