Levi’s arms tighten around me, locking me in. I can’t breathe, but for a minute I don’t want to—and then I’m crying, my sobs leaving me gasping. Levi waits patiently, doing all the things a good boyfriend should do, like stroking my hair and rubbing his thumb on my arm and leaving kisses along my hair line. Eventually, he tilts my head back so he can see my face, which I’m sure looks horribly unattractive. (See also: red, blotchy, tear-streaked, puffy.) He runs the pads of his thumbs over my cheeks to wipe away the tears, one at a time. Then over my lips, red from my teeth, which worry away at my mouth constantly.
I remember, suddenly, that once (it seems like too long ago) I was daydreaming about touching his lips, and here we are now, tangled up in each other, full of sorrow.
“Ugh, my crying face is gross,” I say, and try to hide my face.
“Did you know,” Levi begins, voice quiet, “that my dad used to tell my mom that she looked ugly when she cried?” He places a kiss on my cheek, close to the corner of my mouth. “After sixteen years of marriage, he just couldn’t bear to see that he’d made her cry, time and time again, so he insulted her.” Another kiss, on my chin. “I know we haven’t been married for sixteen years, or, um, any years at all, but I can’t imagine…can’t imagine saying that.” He shakes his head. “You’re so beautiful, all the time.”
“Even right now?” I whisper.
“Even right now.”
“Wow. I must be hot stuff.”
Levi makes a face. “Are you mocking me?”
“No, shush,” I say, and kiss him. (And then I open my mouth so I can kiss him better.) “I should get back in there,” he says after a minute, when I’m on my toes and all I want is to keep kissing him.
“Party pooper,” I say.
He laughs, wiping away one stray tear. “I love you, and I love your dad, and I’m so, so sorry, Bee.”
Those are the words I needed to hear. I thank him silently, squeezing his hand too tight. Now that I’m feeling better, I almost want to bring up what happened yesterday, our fight, the way he looked at me as if I had disappointed him beyond belief. But today, all that has been stripped away; there is no trace of anger or disappointment or fear left between us. Today, I want to forget what happened.
All of yesterday can go to hell.
I kiss him one more time and take his hand as we head back inside. (I do my best to leave my doubts behind.) We walk straight into a war zone. Albert and Missy are still arguing, but this time, quite bewilderingly, they’re on the same side. This time, they’ve banded against Elle.
“Give that to me,” she gasps, and rushes at the two of them. They’re holding and shaking and tossing around the backpack she lugs everywhere. Elle’s pissed.
“Why?” they tease, holding it up between them.
“Don’t you dare open that,” Elle gasps, and lunges Albert swings it out of her reach and, swift as the glitter-throwing ninja he is, unzips the backpack and dumps it upside down. Elle’s eyes go wide and her cheeks burn red as about twenty books fall out at their feet.
And they’re not just any books—they’re hot-and-heavy romance novels. Plastered with mostly naked Highlanders and women draped in sheets, bearing long-winded titles like How To Rescue A Rake From A Marriage of Convenience, and coming in all shapes and sizes, they lie at Elle’s feet in a furious state of disarray.
Of course, that’s when the glitter rains down on Elle and her books. “Those covers are rude,” Albert states.
Levi’s laugh fills the empty space around me like a warm blanket, and I start to feel comfortable here again.
Elle stands up with three books stacked in her arms, nose in the air. “I won’t apologize for my taste in literature.”
“Literature!” I gasp, feigning horror, and pull up a second chair behind Levi’s desk.
Elle’s expression turns from embarrassment to relief in a split second. “Come on, don’t tell me you haven’t wanted to pick up one of these bad boys.”
“No, not personally,” I say, and a truly happy laugh escapes me.
“Look,” Elle exclaims, opening one of the books to a page just after the middle of the book. The title is To Steal A Demon’s Love. I’m pretty sure the woman on the cover could never actually pretzel herself around a man like that unless she was Elastigirl, but I’m also pretty sure Mr. Beefy-Cover-Model is not Elastigirl’s type.
Elle begins reading from her selected scene. I roll my eyes and try to find something to do, while Levi just stands there next to me, grimacing. Albert has his fingers in his ears, muttering to himself. Missy, on the other hand, looks completely enraptured.
After a few minutes, Levi sits in the swivel chair beside me and says, “Well, that was unexpected.”
I shake my head in equal disbelief. “I didn’t even know she was a reader!”
He whimpers. “If I hear one more thing about glistening chests, heavy breathing, and clenching of any kind, I will die.”
The amount of disgust on his face makes me laugh, a truly happy laugh, my first in what feels like years. “Don’t listen to her, then. Talk to me.”
He shudders, stacking some applications. “Want to help with these?”
I nod eagerly. “Distract me.”
“Obviously I’ve been doing that from Day One,” he says.
I attempt to laugh at this because he’s joking, but it’s actually the truth. I see him, in my mind’s eye, like it was yesterday: standing by the car, head ducked under the hood, hair gloriously untamed. And later, he believed I was staring at his clothes, when I was really staring at his face.
I poke the side of his neck to get him to look at me, but of course, now I’m exactly what I asked to be: distracted. I run my finger up to his jaw, my thumb slipping over the curve of his ear, tracing his sharp cheek bone to his nose—and that’s when I realize he’s looking at me. His expression makes me shiver, because while I see the adoration that’s always there, I see hunger as well, and I realize how I’ve been touching him and what it’s done to both of us.
“What are you doing?” he whispers, as if to remind me that we’re surrounded by people. His ears are a little red, but my cheeks are fully aflame.
“I was…not…doing anything,” I say, unconvincingly. “You were distracting me.”
“Oh, great way to shift the blame.”
“I asked you to distract me.”
“Bee.”
I smile innocently. “Just ignore me,” I say. “And give me those applications.”
Locked in silence, we fall back into work, secluded in our corner of the office while everyone else pretends we don’t exist.
Chapter 39
Levi
Come rescue me. Elle now openly reads smut in the office. I could cry.
Bee
Tell her to stop polluting the minds of children.
I can’t help it: I laugh out loud, the sound echoing in the back of the shop as I slip my phone into my apron pocket. Despite everything going on, I feel somewhat refreshed by the lack of news from the doctor. (No news is better than bad news.) Today is a designing day for me, as Tracy is getting ready for a wedding and needs an extra set of hands, which only adds to my happiness. I have three arrangements left: a simple arrangement to put on display in the cooler, an autumn wreath for someone’s front door, and a basket arrangement for a funeral.