Page 14 of Marriage (Red, White &) Blues

“You did not.” I slapped his chest softly, laughing though my embarrassment. Blake caught my hand bringing it up to his lips to press a kiss to my knuckles and my heart tried to explode out of my chest. Thank the universe that he couldn’t see how fast it beat. I wanted that. I wanted all of it, but if we got naked and he thought I was bad in bed, there’d be no coming back from that. Ever. I wasn’t even catholic, but I’d join a convent to never have to find myself in that position again. Blake thinking that would ruin me for life. I knew it. I knew it as sure as I was standing here. Still, I kept the smile plastered to my face because he’d ask me what was wrong and I couldn’t lie to him, didn’t want to.

“You’re smiling. Phone call go well?”

“It did.” Change of subject. Oh, you wonderful man. “Thank you for pushing me to do that.”

He abruptly stopped us dancing, still holding me close, and looked deeply into my eyes. “You’re an amazing woman, Glory.”

Blake leaned in, ready to kiss me, when someone scored at shuffleboard and the crowd cheered, and a man stumbled into us. Blake held on to keep us together, but we pitched forward, falling into a woman and that man. We ended up in a pile on the deck and Blake and I absolutely lost it. I’m talkingtears in our eyes,couldn’t catch a breathkind of hysterical laughter that had people scooting away from us.

Ask me if I cared.

The cruise had fancy dinners, but as neither he nor I had packed anything fancy to wear, we opted to dine in the pub instead once I finally pulled him from the deck. He liked the smell of the sea air.

Oh, and the pub had karaoke. The room got to hear me break out my best Gaga and Queen. Blake joined me for Queen because Freddie Mercury I was not, which meant I needed a partner on “Bohemian Rhapsody.” He ate a pub burger with homemade steak fries while I enjoyed the braised corned beef and cabbage.

We took in the hot tub later that evening and ended the first day on the ship vegging out by watching movies.

Our next couple of days went by in a pretty similar vein, with only a few minor adjustments thrown in. And the next thing I knew, we’d docked in Ghana.

Once we disembarked, we found out that the country had safety warnings for tourists. A man stood with a sign to bring us back to the resort Blake had booked us in. Normally, resorts weren’t our thing, but we felt like it was the safest option until we got the lay of the land. But honestly, after a couple of days ofresort life, we had a meeting of the minds and decided to head out.

After much discussion on where our next adventure would take us, Blake and I booked a flight to the Serengeti. Who wouldn’t want to go on a safari?

The small plane took off. I squeezed Blake’s hand until his fingers turned white. Smaller planes like this always made me nervous.Breathe in through your nose, out through your mouth, Gloria.

“You okay, sweetheart?”

“Small planes—not so much.”

“Do you want to drive?”

I vigorously shook my head. “Safety warnings. I’ll be okay once we land.”

“Glory, I promise if I thought it wasn’t safe, we wouldn’t be here now.”

To ease my mind, he flipped open his backpack, fishing around inside until he found his earbuds fitting one into his ear and then fitting one into mine before pulling his tablet out too. He powered it up, clicking on a movie he’d save to it.Mean Girls.

“When did you?” I asked, so caught up in the excitement that I failed to finish my sentence.

He shrugged. “When you told me it was your favorite movie of all time. The original—not‘that horrid remake they did last year.’” He chuckled while using air quotes to remind me of what I’d told him during that long train ride from Denmark to Portugal. “I had to see this work of pure comic genius for myself, given you love it so much.”

This man. This wonderful man. I continued to hold his hand but with Blake next to me and my favorite movie cued up, I was able to settle for the duration of the flight.

Of course, once we landed, I felt incredibly stupid for having been such a baby about it.

We followed the group of passengers off the small tarmac, through the terminal to wait for our ride at the bus stop with our other fellow travelers heading for the lodges. He held his arm out to me. “Ms. Kowalski, would you like to join me on an adventure?”

“That I would, Mr. Parker,” I replied as I took his arm and he helped me up the tall step to get onto the bus. Once we’d found seats, it felt so real then that I almost couldn’t contain my excitement. Rather than shout the roof off like a damned fool, I squeezed his arm a little tighter and gushed, “We’re going on safari!”

His smile just about undid me. “We certainly are.” The door shut and the bus jutted forward as it started to move. Without his firm grip around my arm, I would have landed in some poor man’s lap. Moving was precarious at best until we made it to our seats.

We were the only two to get off at our lodge and I kid not, it looked like thatched-roof huts. Yes, it had amenities like a pool, buthuts.

I snapped off so many pictures that I figured I’d have to pay to upgrade my cloud storage. Given the heat of the morning already, after checking into our room, Blake and I changed into swimsuits and headed out for the pool.

“Can you believe this is our life?” I asked him, still amazed by it myself.

“It’s a pretty great life,” he replied as he hooked his finger into the cleavage of my suit to draw me in for a kiss. Yes, I sighed. Again. Blake had that effect on me. “I thought I’d give us today to acclimate, but tomorrow, I booked us with a private guide.”

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