Page 98 of The Path To Us

“I’m not…” he starts to protest but I shush him with my fingers to his lips. Which he licks. I roll my eyes and don’t let it deter me.

“You are. I see it in your eyes. But if he were alive, I’d still choose you. I choose you, Beau.”

“I want to fuck you again,” he growls.

“I don’t have a lot else on my agenda today so I think we can pencil it in,” I say, joking.

Then it hits me that it’s a Thursday morning and we both should have been working today.

“Holy shit!” I say, standing up quickly. “We have jobs!”

He bursts out laughing. “I talked to Lindley already and she’s covering the shop for you today. I had plans.”

“Beau!”

“What?” he asks, completely unashamed. “I told you I had plans and didn’t want anything to disrupt them. And let’s be honest. You needed last night just as much as I did. My crew here is one I’ve worked with for a million other jobs so they know what to do.” He tugs on my hand so I’m sitting on his lap again. “We have the entire day to ourselves.”

I thread my fingers through his hair and lean down to kiss him. “Mmm,” I hum. “What sort of things should we do to occupy our time?”

“I’ve got a few ideas.”

“So do I.”

“Care to see if our ideas are the same?”

Rather than answer, I get up and walk into the house. He trails behind me.

Then we take a nap.

And when we wake up two hours later, we start tackling a few of those ideas.

The best part of the day?

Beau is taking me out on our first date.

He even managed to have flowers delivered to the house before our date. And bonus? He went to the shop yesterday and Lindley helped him arrange it himself. My fingers itched to fix a few of the flowers and rearrange, but I didn’t. Because the gesture was worth having a pale pink carnation included in the mix of otherwise brightly colored gerbera daisies, roses, and tulips.

Two days later he saw me staring at the flowers and laughed.

“I knew you’d hate that carnation but wanted to see what you’d do.”

“You knew?”

“Of course I knew. You only complain about carnations all the time. But I couldn’t resist.”

If possible, I fell in love with him a little more.

The only thing he’s told me is that he reserved an outdoor table at my favorite Italian steakhouse.

And if I have my way, we’ll skip any other plans he may have and come back here before it’s time to get Zoey.

I’ll absolutely get my way.

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