Page 56 of Finding You
“I don’t care. I just saw this and thought of you. Valentine’s Day was just an excuse to give it to you.”
I opened the card. It had roses on the front and was blank inside, and he had written his own message.
Happy Valentine’s Day. Our relationship may be fake, but your beauty, smarts, and incredible ass are all real.
xoxo Declan
I looked up at him and felt a blush creep across my cheeks. I had never been given a Valentine as an adult. He wrote me a message, and it was so cute. And he thought I had a nice ass? I felt giddy and a little bit dizzy. I wanted to throw my arms around him and kiss the hell out of him again, but I had to keep my hormones under control. He was so kind and thoughtful. I couldn’t ruin this all by sticking my tongue down his throat like a horny teenager.
What did this mean? I wanted to sit down with a notebook and analyze this like a tricky contractual provision. I loved riddles and solving complex problems, so it seemed natural to do a full due diligence on this Valentine.Stop being crazy and open your present.
“Open your gift.”
I went to grab the gift, and it was insanely heavy. “What is this thing?”
I sat on the floor and began to unwrap the floral paper. My hands were shaking slightly. I didn’t often receive gifts, so this felt special, significant somehow.
I tore all the paper away and stared. “What? Is this… a sledgehammer?” It was fancy looking, with a beautiful, polished wood handle. My name was engraved on the top in fancy script. It must have weighed at least ten pounds. I was really confused. What on earth did I need an admittedly very fancy sledgehammer for?
“Yup. I have a surprise for you. Grab your coat.”
* * *
“What are we doing here?”
“You’ll see.”
Declan had driven us down through town to the headquarters of Quinn Fisheries. It was a massive shipyard with equipment and machinery everywhere. There was an enormous building with industrial garage doors on one side. I had never been to this part of town. It was much more commercial looking, and large fishing boats bobbed up and down in the water for what looked like miles. It was chilly, but bright and sunny, a brisk winter day and I was glad I’d worn my heavy coat.
He parked in front and grabbed my gift out of the back. He slung it over his shoulder and led me over to an area where there was debris and equipment lying around.
“Here, I made this for you.” He gestured to a massive structure made of wooden shipping pallets. “We have had these and this other junk lying around. So I collected it all for you.”
I stared at him. I wasn’t sure what was going on. So there was a bunch of scrap wood and other stuff. Were we going to burn it?
He handed me a pair of safety glasses. “Here. To protect your eyes.” I took them and put them on. They wrapped around the side of my face and reminded me of chemistry lab in high school.
We stood in silence. He was smiling at me, with his infuriatingly handsome face. Did he want me to sledgehammer? What would that accomplish? Surely we could put all this crap in one of the many dumpsters on the edge of the property?
He nodded toward the pile. “Get to work.”
“So you just want me to what? Smash all this?”
He crossed his arms and smiled. “Yup.”
“Why?”
“Because you can. Trust me, that is a great reason.”
This was officially the strangest gift I had ever been given. But I was intrigued. I doubted I was strong enough to swing this thing, and while busting up old pallets and junk sounded like fun, I wasn’t really connecting the dots.
“You can do it. Fuck it up, killer. Go nuts.” I smiled. I secretly loved when he called me killer. I had never been the sugar and spice and everything nice type of girl. I wore my toughness like a badge of honor, and I appreciated that he recognized that.
Declan took a few steps back and put on the other pair of goggles. “Do you want a soundtrack?” He held up his phone.
I smirked. “Do you have any Lizzo?”
“For you, I’ve got everything.”
