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I rub the area between my eyes. I’ve had a headache there since Tab made me stay up regaling her with stories from my date with Micah.
“How you didn’t end up on your back with your legs spread is beyond me.”
I glance up at Jace, who’s pulling this morning’s orders, and then cut my gaze to Tab to tell her to shut up. “It wasn’t like that,” I whisper as I walk past her.
She grumbles something under her breath, but I ignore her. It really wasn’t like that. It was dreamy and beautiful, and we got to know each other in a way that wasn’t just about what the other looked like. It was a real date. The kind I’d envisioned myself having when I was little. Not a trip to the Dairy Queen where we ate in the back of his pickup truck, but a real-life date. Except, since it was Micah Freeman, it was on a whole other level. Private. Romantic. And he’d oozed sexiness.
With Jace’s help, the orders are done in no time. It turns out, he’s extremely good, and he seems to really love the work. He’s asked me about how I come up with my designs, and he loves on Athena all the time.
It’s only his second day here, and he’s working like an old pro. Meanwhile, we keep growing and growing. It seems like every time we post an item on social media, it damn near sells out. Joey suggested we have a Posh Pet photo backdrop and take customers’ pictures with their new outfit. If they agree, they get a 10% off coupon for their next visit and that gets us new content for our social media. Tab bought a backdrop already, and today, we’ll clear a corner of the store so we can start that on Monday.
If you’d have asked me two months ago if my life was bound for a one-eighty turnaround, I would’ve said no, but I kept praying about it. And here I am.
“No kiss or anything?” Tab asks around lunchtime when we’re alone in the back room. “Are you holding out on me?”
The fact that she’s still thinking about this makes me laugh. I haven’t told her we’ve already had phone sex, so presumably we skipped an important step. It doesn’t feel right to share that, even though I’m used to sharing everything with her. “Why would I do that?”
She opens her mouth to say something else, but then she snaps it shut, eyes widening before she stares down at the counter without saying a word.
“What?”
She shakes her head, but my suspicions rise. I peer to where she had looked and spot a bouquet of beautiful flowers headed this way. The door opens, and Jace greets the delivery guy, but instead, he says, “Hey, how ar—Holy shit.”
The flowers lower, and I suck in a breath.Micah. He glares back at a starstruck Jace, but when he moves his gaze to me,it morphs instantly. A tender look with a half smile greets me. “Good afternoon, beautiful.”
“Good afternoon.” I can’t keep my eyes off the flowers. Pretty oranges and purples, some pinks and whites. I breathe in deep, and it’s almost like I can smell the scent of Eastern Tennessee.
“I asked for wildflowers that would’ve grown in those fields you grew up running around in.”
He sets them on the counter between us, and I lift to my tiptoes to get a better angle to breathe them in. I sigh. “They’re perfect.”
He moves his hand, and that’s when I realize that the flowers aren’t the only piece of art. I follow the length of his arm, tattooed to perfection until it slips under the short sleeve of his T-shirt. It dawns on me then that this is the first time I’ve seen him without a suit or a long-sleeved shirt on. I’d almost forgotten about his tattoos, a black ink forest of pines chiseled into his muscles. It’s as if the real Micah Freeman and the one I met are two completely different people and this body art merges them.
Micah moves around the counter, and Tab walks off, taking short glances over her shoulder at me. I turn toward him, and his smile grows ever so slightly. “Come to my game today.”
I swallow. “A game?”
Why is it so hard to reconcile the fact that the man standing in front of me istheMicah Freeman?
He nods. “There’s a seat in my box with your name on it.”
“Your b-box?” My anxiety spikes, a flood of mixed emotions rushes through my body until my hands shake. “I won’t know anyone.”
Theclickof Athena’s nails sound against the floor as she makes her way over to me. Micah pats the top of her head. “I got this one, girl.”
He reaches out to me, tangling his fingers with mine. Athena noses our joined hands, making me smile. Eventually, my gaze makes it up to Micah’s. He rubs his thumb over the pulse point at my wrist. “I thought about getting you a general admission seat, but then I realized I wouldn’t be able to keep an eye on you, and playing football is sort of my job, and I don’t want to let my team down because I’m worried about you the entire game. In my box, you’ll be safe. No drunk guys getting handsy or fans of the opposite team getting rowdy. Plus, it has a very big draw.”
“What’s that?” I ask, trying to keep my voice normal.
He peers over his shoulder. “Well…you actually will know someone.”
I follow his gaze and suck in a breath. A sharply dressed young man is leading my pawpaw into the store. “This is it?” I hear him ask. “Aww, Pet Threads. Look at that.” He points out the words on the door and smiles. “That’s my granddaughter, you know?”
The young man smiles at him good-naturedly, and I’m already running toward the door, Athena hot on my heels.
My pawpaw struggles to get the door open, but with a little help from the other guy, it swings wide just as I get there. “There she is!”
I wrap my arms around his frail body, and he squeezes me back with more strength than I thought he possessed. “I missed you.”