Page 9 of Doing It for Love

Landon scratches his bare abs, then settles his hand on the door frame. His dark hair is flattened on one side of his head, and there are pillow lines across his cheek.

“It’s not out here.” He grins.

I let my heart go down to normal beats per minute, then slide past him to get back inside. His hands latch onto my waist, and he hugs me from behind. His body is warm. It’s always warm. He’s like my own personal heater.

“Where is it?” I ask, linking my fingers through his over my bellybutton.

“What? No good morning, how’d you sleep?”

“Morning.” I tap his knuckles. “Where is it?”

His soft laughter tickles the small hairs on my neck. “I hid it.”

“Where?”

He sweeps my scraggly blond ponytail across my shoulders, placing playful kisses on my skin. Curse his power of distraction.

“I gotta get ready for work,” he says into my ear. I shiver like I’m still standing out on the balcony, and he chuckles and squeezes my hand twice. I squeeze back once.

“Oh, by all means, take your time getting the ring on my finger. You know how patient I am.”

“It’ll be on your hand before I leave today.”

He nips at my shoulder again, then weaves through the obstacle course I created in the living room. I pout behind his back, playing with my bare ring finger. I need a distraction, or I’ll tear this place apart even more.

After getting past the Rubbermaid bins and clearing off a space wide enough on the counter to fix myself some coffee, I start the pot and slouch on the couch with the laptop.

I pull up my Pinterest and go to my wedding board. Not that I have a ton of pins on here…or that I thought this would be happening anytime soon, but some people post the prettiest dresses or the cutest cakes and I needed a place for them. When I started the board a little less than four years ago, I gave Landon a heart attack. We’d only been dating a month. So of course I played it up, had some fun with him, and I thought he was joking when he asked me to move in with him just to get back at me. But he wasn’t. And I haven’t regretted that decision at all. Well, minus those darn socks he leaves everywhere. It’s still one of the Hurdles from my Moving In With Boyfriend List I have yet to clear.

Oh! My Hurdles List…I should make one for planning the wedding. I click over to Word and start typing:

The Hurdles of Getting Married

1.Get Landon on board with Operation Make Wedding Night Sex the Greatest Ever.

2.Tell friends and family

3.Actually meet the in-laws (bonus Hurdle…get them to like me!)

Some very angry wings beat in my stomach with the thought of meeting Landon’s parents, and I hurry and type more Hurdles so I don’t have to think about it right now.

4.Find the perfect dress. (!)

5.Find the perfect (i.e., sunny) honeymoon locale

6.Book the perfect venue.

Oh, I know exactly which one, too. Landon and I made a pact on our two-year anniversary. He accidentally gave the cabdriver the wrong address and instead of going to the Pranna Restaurant, we ended up at the Boathouse in Central Park. After teasing him relentlessly that he was planning on marriage so soon, he said that the next time we were at the Boathouse, we really would be getting married.

I pull up their website and my bank account, patting myself on the back for being such a penny-pincher that we have a nice savings balance.

“Ugh…” I groan as I click through available dates, spanning out two or three years. Hell no. I cannot be sex free for that long. Just as I’m about to pass this Hurdle to my mom, I find a January date.

January…perfect. I can picture it now…winter wedding, snowflakes and hot chocolate fountains. Then we can take off to our honeymoon in the Bahamas. Bonus! I get a week of winter somewhere above thirty degrees.

And to top off the perfection, January is the month I met Landon.

I was lucky to get into an advanced theater program my freshman year of college. My first class was after Christmas Break. I did all the plays in high school, performed at a couple theaters as an extra a few times. I loved it. And when I waltzed into the class that’s usually reserved for upperclassmen, I held my back straight and smiled like I belonged there. Because I did. I’d earned it.

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