Page 82 of The Playboy's Playbook

His breath catches and he stares at me, his blue eyes wild. I can’t tell if he’s happy, sad, or angry. It’s so many emotions flowing through his head, I can’t make heads or tails of it. He closes his eyes and presses his lips together in a firm line, still unnervingly silent.

“Say something, please. I did trudge through a shit ton of dirt in designer heels to get to you,” I beg.

He finally opens his eyes and looks at me. “I’ve loved you ever since the second grade. I was just stupid, but now I know better and I know what I want. I want to spend every waking moment I have with you. I want to go on walks with you and Nola. I want to have dinners with your mom. I want Erica to yell at me because that’s what Erica does. I want you to grab my credit card out of my wallet and go have a ball in Target.”

“Oh, be careful. Those are dangerous words,” I chuckle.

“As long as it’s you and only you, I’m okay. You can ruin my life and I’d be fine with it because I love you. I love you in this life and the next.”

As soon as the last syllable falls from his lips, Matt leans in for a kiss, but our hard hats clink together, startling us both. We both burst into laughter before removing the hats and then he finally presses his lips to mine.

This kiss is full of passion, love, and longing. We both needed this and now that it’s finally happening, I feel like we can both breathe easy again.

“Are you going to get fired because I showed up here? I did sort of threaten one of your co-workers,” I whisper after we pull away.

Matt laughs, life returning to his face. He shakes his head. “No, I’m pretty good friends with the foreman. Something tells me he’ll be alright with it.”

Matt cuts his eyes behind me and I turn and see Luke leaning against the door of his trailer smiling proudly at us. He nods his head and turns back to his crew member, the one I stole the hard hat from. Matt will most definitely hear about this, but I don’t care.

“Let’s go home. I need you in the worst way,” Matt says, his hand running up and down my spine. I turn back to him and see fire behind his eyes. It’s been a long time since we’ve been together and I know just what to do to fix this problem.

“Good thing I bought condoms before I came here.”

Matt

“Baby, we’re going to be late! Luke said to be there at five!” I shout upstairs as Nola returns with her ball for me to roll to the other corner. Ever since Laila and I got back together, life has never been better.

When I asked her to be my girlfriend, I did it in the most Matt Foster way possible. Nothing went according to plan, Jen ended up crying because he felt like Laila wouldn’t love him anymore, and Nola shit on the carpet.

It was perfect.

“I’ve never had a boyfriend before,” Laila says after we break apart from our kiss.

I nod in understanding. “That’s okay.”

“I’ll have to ask Nola how she feels about having a spare human around more often. She’s very territorial, you know,” she says nonchalantly.

As soon as people caught wind that Laila and I were “potentially” and “allegedly” hooking up, we decided it was time to put the rumors to bed and went public with our relationship. We took a trip to the beach after we got back together and asked this newlywed couple to take a picture of us with the sunset behind us.

The husband happily snapped the photos while his wife directed us in different poses. Our favorite one was of me kissing Laila on the cheek with my arms around her waist and her smiling at the camera, her arms wrapped around my neck. We look happy and in love because we are happy and in love.

With everything we’ve been through, we deserve to be happy with each other.

Of course, girls flooded Laila’s DMs trying to rehash old shit, specifically Rachel, but Laila took it like a champ and blocked them all from both of our accounts.

Laila had to go back to D.C., but she said that Senator Mitchell is considering opening a satellite office in Alabama, so there’s a high chance that Laila could be moving back permanently. I’ve been crossing my fingers hoping that the senator pulls through and opens the new office so I can be closer to my girl.

Laila’s mom surprised her by announcing her retirement from being Oakridge Elementary’s principal at Thanksgiving dinner. Who knew that her work trips these past two summers were for her to get the things she needed to open up her flower shop in Oakridge right across the street from my mom’s boutique.

It felt good being there to watch her create a space that’s her own. It felt even better watching Laila go to bat for her mom and helping her in any way that she could. When it came time to renovate the old building downtown, Laila asked Luke if he had any availability.

Luke doesn’t rearrange the construction schedule for anyone, but he moved mountains for Laila to make sure her mom’s shop was up and running by the end of November, just in time for the Christmas season because there’s nothing like an Oakridge Christmas.

Her business took off, so Laila and I spent most of the holiday season in Oakridge helping her mom package orders. Luke even helped out when he was available and brought the boys with him to sweep and keep the shop clean. They learned what it meant to earn an allowance and now they’re begging to help Ms. Gina out after school.

Clay and Jen miss Laila when she has to leave, but it’s only an hour-flight to D.C., so Luke and I take weekend trips to visit her so the boys can experience life in the city.

If Luke and I have to go off and work somewhere, we try and plan it to be on a weekend so the boys can fly out to stay with Laila. Nola probably enjoys having them around just as much as they enjoy being around her. She was already a playful and energetic puppy but having two small children to run around with gives her an outlet to release her energy.

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