Life, Cady decided, was pretty damn awesome.
This wasn’t a normal state of being for her. Well, at least not since that had happened. And especially not since her parents had died.
Previous to that, she’d been a positive person. Or she thought she had been. It was hard to remember that far back, really.
And then, it was the Dark Times, and she’d been miserable and scared and oh-so-afraid all the time, and she hadn’t been able to believe that life would get any better. Life would always be that awful.
Always.
But Gage Dyer came into her life and had changed everything for her. No longer afraid of shadows. No longer afraid of planes, although she still didn’t want to fly on one. She was happy to never step onto a plane for the rest of her life.
But at least she didn’t cower and cry every time a crop duster flew overhead, which was a hell of an improvement.
She wanted to tell Gage how much she loved him; she felt the words on her lips almost constantly, but she was afraid. What if he didn’t feel the same way? What if she was a fun companion for him – compatible in and out of bed – but he wanted nothing more than that?
Afraid to lose what they had, Cady swallowed her words of love and tried to show it through her actions instead. He’d changed her life – he was her life – and she told him this with every look, every back rub, every graze of her hand across his chest.
“We have got to do girls’ weekends more often,” Sugar said, laughing as she piled out of Emma’s car, leaning back in to retrieve Rose. The 8-month-old was bundled up against the frigid air of the November day but she didn’t seem to mind. She grinned up at her momma, showing off her bottom teeth – the only ones that’d come in so far – and waved her pudgy hands in the air. “The men in our lives can survive without us for three days.”
“In your lives, maybe,” Emma grumbled good-naturedly under her breath. “I don’t have a man in my life to miss me. Other than my boss, and quite frankly, we need the weekends as breathers so we don’t kill each other.”
“Well, thanks for taking off during the week,” Cady said. “I know it was a lot to talk your boss into letting you have Wednesday through Friday off, but with everything I still have left to get ready for the grand opening, nothing else would’ve worked.”
They headed for the front door of the Smoothie Queen where they would try out Cady’s newest creation – blueberries and pineapple, which she knew sounded disgusting but had promised everyone that it tasted marvelous – and then Emma had to head back to Denver.
Cady inwardly sighed at the thought of Emma leaving again. She’d never had friends like Sugar and Emma before, and although Sugar was fun when Emma wasn’t there, it was like she completed the circuit or something, making life even more amazing when the three of them were together.
Life was just better with the Dyers around.
“Do you ever hear from Nicholas?” Sugar asked Emma as Cady fumbled with her keys for the front door. “Is he still in the Marines?”
“Nicholas?” Cady echoed. “Who’s Nicholas?” She finally got the deadbolt to slide back and she pushed into the store, holding the door open for Emma and Sugar to pass through. “How have I not heard about a hot Marine before this?”
But both Emma and Sugar were just standing there with gleeful looks on their faces, looking meaningfully at Cady as if she was supposed to be excited about something. Even Rose was getting in on the scene, waving her slobbery fist in the air and screeching happily.
“Why are you guys staring at me like that?” Cady asked slowly, a tingle going up her spine. Something was going on here, and she couldn’t tell what, and the way they were acting made it seem like it’d be good, but—
“Because they keep expecting you to notice that I’m standing right here,” Gage said out of the darkness, leaning against the wall that separated their businesses.
Cady yelped and jumped at least a foot in the air, staring through the dim evening light, trying to read the look on Gage’s face. “Gage!” she squeaked, her hand over her heart. “Oh heavens. You scared the shit outta me. Why are you standing here in the dark? You should turn on—” she reached over and flicked on one of the table lamps on top of a shelving unit and turned back to Gage, “the lighhhtttssss…”
She sounded a bit like a toy running out of battery – a rundown talking doll – but she couldn’t make herself care in that moment. Her brain was too stunned as she tried to take in what she was seeing.
It was Gage standing there all right, but he wasn’t in front of the wall between the bakery and the smoothie shop. He was in front of the glass door between the bakery and the smoothie shop.
“Where…what…” She was sputtering like an engine running out of gas. “Where did the door come from?!” she finally got out. She was crossing to it, pushing at it and letting it swing open into the bakery, looking for all the world like it’d always been there.
Except it hadn’t. It wasn’t like she would’ve missed seeing a glass-and-aluminum door between their businesses all this time.
“Surprise,” Gage said softly, and even through the haze of shock, she could sense the nervousness in his voice. “It locks from both sides. I can install curtains if you’d like, blocking the view. We can lock it and pretend this never happened. I wanted to surprise you – a present for your grand opening on Monday. But if you hate it, I can make it go—”
“Hate it?” Cady whispered, still pushing at the door and watching it swing. “Hate it?! I love it.” She turned to Gage and threw her arms around his neck, wrapping her legs around his hips and kissing him enthusiastically. His hands slipped under her ass and he supported her there as if she weighed nothing more than a small sack of sugar.
A tiny part of Cady’s brain registered words and sounds and then it was just her and Gage in the store, kissing as if they’d never kissed before.
No, Cady decided, better than that. Kissing as if they knew each other intimately. Kissing as if they’d been apart for ages but now were ready to become one. Right then, right there, against the wall right next to the swinging door, Gage was going to take her and…
Barking. Loud barking. What was that noise? Gage was kissing down the side of her neck as she practically melted into the wall, her head tilted to the side to give him better access, her ankles hooked at the small of Gage’s back, but still, there was barking.
Finally, she forced her eyes open and she saw Cream Puffs dancing around their feet, barking excitedly, thrilled that Cady was gone from her three-day weekend with Sugar and Emma and quite ready for some attention. Like, now.
“I need…” Cady moaned, pushing at Gage’s shoulders. She let her ankles unlock and she slid down the front of him, every delicious inch pressing against her body on the descent.
“I need—” Gage said, his voice husky with that need, but Cady pushed lightly at his shoulders again.
“Cream Puffs hasn’t seen me in three days,” she said, dropping to her knees and letting the teenage dog bathe her face in kisses. “She misses me.”
“I haven’t seen you in three days either,” Gage grumbled good-naturedly, and then pushed the door open between the two businesses again, clearly ready for more praise on the topic now that it was obvious they weren’t going to make passionate love against the wall of the smoothie shop. “I really wanted to ask you before I did this, but I couldn’t figure out how and still have it be a surprise. Asking ‘Can I do this?’ tends to take away the surprise factor.”
Cady snorted with laughter against Cream Puffs’ neck. “Just a bit,” she murmured.
“So I decided to make it mostly reversible. In case you hated it. Like I said, a lock on either side plus curtains would pretty much turn this into a no-go. It wasn’t hard to convince Sugar and Emma to take you out for some girls’ time together—”
“Oooohhhhh…” Cady breathed, the pieces all falling into place. Their insistence that they had to take these three days off, even though it was just days before the grand opening. Their insistence that Cady make them the blueberry and pineapple smoothie once they got back, even though Cady had thought they’d both just want to go home and relax.
“They didn’t want to try my smoothie after all!” she said, half indignant, looking around and realizing that they were both gone. She vaguely remembered the noises and the words while she’d had her legs wrapped around Gage, and guessed that it was them saying goodbye.
Or telling them to get a room.
Probably both, honestly.
“They just wanted to be here when you saw the door,” Gage agreed. “Emma was absolutely insistent. Said she wouldn’t leave for Denver until she saw your face.”
Finally having given Cream Puffs enough love – at least for the moment – Cady stood and walked back to the door, the dog trailing in her wake. “So you just cut through the cinder block wall?” she asked, looking at the carefully crafted door frame. If Gage ever decided to give up making cakes, he could do handyman work instead. She’d never met such a meticulous worker before, other than her own father, of course.
“Just? Just?!” he repeated, mock outraged by the word. “I busted through concrete for you. Not every girl can say that her boyfriend broke through a concrete wall for her.”
She laughed as she grinned up at him. “It is a very romantic story,” she whispered as she stood up on her tiptoes, sliding her arms around his neck. “I shall be sure to give it its full due when I retell it, I promise.”
As she kissed him again, and he pressed her against the wall of the shop again, and began making his way down her neck again, she decided that actually, life was even better than “pretty damn awesome.” Perhaps “really damn awesome” was more appropriate. Or “stupendously damn awesome.”
Whatever way she cut it, though, “awesome” was definitely true.