“No no, it’s not that. I don’t know that I was necessarily thinking anything—just very vague ideas floating around, not even really thoughts yet. Like, thought . . . adjacent.”
“Oh boy, we are really going all around this one.” He chuckled. “So let’s start with the thought adjacent. What’s up, babe?”
“Have you ever watched waves and wondered, what if one wave wanted to go in another direction?”
“Watched waves, yes. Thought about assigning intelligent thought to waves? Nope. Can’t say that I have.” He looked more closely at me. “But now I’m curious. What thoughts do you think these waves are having?”
“It’s not the waves, per se. Just . . . the idea that they have no choice. They have their path, and that’s it. All roads lead to the beach.”
“What a terrible road,” he teased, and I socked him.
“You asked for my thoughts; these are my thoughts. I didn’t say they made any sense—they hadn’t gotten to that point yet,” I said, and he held me closer.
“Nightie Girl, your thoughts make perfect sense, considering the dinner conversation tonight.”
“Huh?”
“The panic on your face when you thought someone was asking about us getting married. Now you’re out here worrying about waves making different choices. Not that hard a leap to make. It’s not like I just met you, you know.” I could feel him smiling against my neck, and if it was possible for me to hold him tighter, I wasn’t aware of it.
“I wasn’t panicked; it just surprised me, is all. And then when it wasn’t actually about me, about us . . . I don’t know, I just . . . I wasn’t prepared to answer that question, I guess.”
“What if I were the one asking it?”
“Wait . . . what?” I asked, lifting my chin and looking up at him. In the moonlight, his eyes were the deepest blue, and fixed solidly on me. Studying me, looking for a reaction. “You’re not asking me to—”
“No, I’m not asking you to . . . Just asking you how you feel about it, in the general sense. No panic, please.”
“I’m not panicking. I’m perfectly calm,” I answered, then showed him my best facial tic.
“That’s sexy, babe,” he said, and laughed.
“You’re asking me how I feel about marriage in general, or marriage with someone specific in mind?”
“Either. Or both.”
I leaned back to look at him, his hands still on my waist. “I think marriage in the general sense is something I’m in favor of. I also think there’s something to be said for the saying ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.’ It seems to be working for Chloe and Lucas. On the other hand,” I said, sliding my hands up his arms to link behind his neck, “I think marriage with someone specific in mind is also something I’m in favor of—although it would depend on who the someone specific is, of course. Is there a candidate?”
“Possibly,” he answered, beginning to slowly reel me back in closer to his chest. “Very possibly.”
“Is he tall? Witty? Charming? Impossibly good looking?” I asked.
“Yes. All of those things.” He nodded, looking very serious.
I smothered a laugh, rising on tiptoe to press a very loud kiss just below his ear. “You tell this potential fiancé of mine that if he wants my real answer, he has to ask the real question. Until then, this is all chitchat on a balcony. And I’ve had enough chitchat for one evening.”
“How about sex on a balcony?”
“See, now that sounds more like it.” I grinned as his hands slid down my back and around my bottom, pressing me into his hips. As his lips met mine, slow and unhurried, I thought about kissing this specific man for the rest of my life. How could anything possibly be better than this? Simon and me, about to be naked and sexy—could anything top this?
And then I had a vision of this moment happening sometime in the future, but instead of Simon unbuttoning my shirt, he was untying my corset. And instead of sliding my jeans down, he was slipping a blue lacy garter down my thigh. And instead of calling me Nightie Girl as he licked a path from my belly button south, he called me wife.
If he was at all surprised by how aggressive I was with him on the balcony, he didn’t let on. He simply enjoyed it. Twice. Three times . . .
“But three? Seriously, three?”
“It’ll be fun!”
“It’ll be chaos! How in the world are you going to manage three puppies, a newborn, and Neil?”
“I’m nesting. I’m hormonal.”
“You’re psychotic.”
“Also a distinct possibility,” Sophia admitted as we sat in the back of the Rover on our way back to San Francisco. Simon and I had driven back to Chloe’s ranch earlier that morning to say good-bye to her and Lucas and the puppies, and to pick up Sophia and Neil. They’d be heading back down in a month or so, when the puppies were old enough to leave their mother and begin their new city life.