Page 105 of Road Trip to Forever
She sits up and stretches her arms above her head. We didn’t bother to put clothes on last night and the covers fall away from her naked body, pooling around her waist.
Lola is always beautiful, but Lola in the morning light is exquisite. I want to take a picture of her and capture the way the sunrise looks on her skin. Reds and yellows and oranges, like a work of fine art that deserves to be immortalized in a portrait gallery. Her messy hair and swollen lips. The bite mark on her chest, just above her breast.
“Want me to make some breakfast?” I ask, my gaze slipping away from her hips to her face. Her stomach grumbles, an answer to my question.
“Is there any food here?”
“Besides the rest of the miniature pies? No. I can run to the store and get some eggs and bacon, though. I’ll make toast with lots of butter, just the way you like it.”
Her smile is soft. She cups my cheek and stares into my eyes. The windows to her soul, letting me see so much of her. Hope and joy. Love, too.
“I’m not over how right this feels with you, Patrick,” she says. “I don’t think I’ll ever get over how much I like being in your arms and how wonderful you are. I think I expected to wake up this morning and feel like we did something wrong, but I know we haven’t. We’re exactly where we need to be, and I wouldn’t want to be here with anyone else.”
I’m glad to hear her say that, a confirmation that everything we’ve done up to this point has been okay. I know her fears. I know what she’s afraid of, and I plan to spend every day proving to her that I’m not going to leave. Until the end of time, I’m going to be by her side.
I’m weak. I know I’m weak, a complete and total pushover when it comes to her—I always have been—but I don’t care. When you love someone, when you want to show them all thegoodparts of life, why wouldn’t you give them anything they ask? Why wouldn’t you compromise and give a little to take a little so both of you could be happy?
There’s going to come a time—soon, probably, if I had to guess—where we’ll have to figure out how to make our differences work. Sleep schedules, work schedules. Travel preferences and routines. But I’m not worried. I know we’ll figure it out. People who love each otheralwaysfigure it out, and I undoubtedly love Lola Jones.
We’re going to be okay.
“Was that a yes to breakfast?” I ask.
“Yes.” She laughs, wrapping her arms around my neck. “Yes to breakfast. Yes to everything.”
Yes to loving you,I think, pulling the sheets off of her legs and kissing her senseless.
* * *
“You knowI’m not a guy who needs fancy things, but this is much nicer than the room in Virginia,” I say, walking around our suite at the convention center hotel later that morning.
It’s three times the size as the shoebox we slept in the other night, with a separate living room and a bathroom that could rival a small apartment.
“You don’t miss the ghosts?” Lola asks, putting her clothes in the dresser under one of the three televisions in the room. “It added to the charm.”
She started to unpack the minute we got the keys and stepped inside the room. It’s not something she would normally do, usually living out of her suitcase. I know she’s doing it for me, wanting to get the bags out of the way so I’m not on edge with clutter all around us for the next few days. Her consideration makes me all tingly.
“Charm? The ceiling leaked on us the second night.”
“It was antique,” she answers. She giggles when I pull her into my arms and spin her around, my hands sliding into the back pocket of her shorts.
“We made it. We’re here. You’re one step closer to your dreams. Have I told you today how proud I am of you?”
“You told me you liked my ass when I bent over to pick something up, but I haven’t heard about how proud you are.”
“I’m so proud of you, Lola Jones,” I say. “I cannot wait to watch your clothes come down the runway in a few days.”
“Thank you for being here with me.”
“There’s nowhere else I’d rather be.” I kiss her cheek and notice her eyes bounce over my shoulder to the desk where she set up her sewing machine. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong. I think an idea just came to me,” she says cautiously. Her head tilts to the side, wheels turning.
“It did?”
“Yeah. A different top to go under one of the blazers I’m showing for women’s day. I’m not sure if I should try it. It’s a little different from my normal style.”
“Do it,” I say. “Why not? You’re here to test yourself and do things you’ve never done before, right? Could you get it finished in time?”
