Page 22 of A Daddy for Christmas 3: Nova
A carved wooden box sat on my kitchen counter, tucked carefully between the sugar jar and the wooden block that held my sharpest knives. Before this week, it held tea bags; now it contained Nova’s phone.
Since his breakdown on the beach, he’d refused to turn it back on while we were together, except to check on his kitties, then right back off it went and into the box. The result was the rather impressive array of seashell critters that had begun to take up residence on my window ledge.
Piper was still on the fence about the googly-eyed ones; his tail got poofy each time he walked past them. Personally, I loved them, and the collection of starfish, and sea turtles Nova had crafted with his shells.
“I can’t believe we found so much sea glass,” Nova said as he came skipping into the room with several different shapes, sizes, and hues of sea glass rattling around in the bottom of the container he’d carried them into the mudroom to wash it all. “I can’t wait to integrate them into our creatures.”
“Let’s see what you’ve got there,” I said as I finished rinsing my hands and dried them on the dish towel.
“The aquamarine ones are my absolute favorites. I’d love to use them as a base. We can use a coffee lid, or something of a similar size, as a mold and mix sand and Modge-Podge to create a solid piece, then press the glass into the sand so it all solidifies together,” he suggested, the excitement in his voice unmistakable.
“Let me see what I can find,” I said, letting out a low whistle as I studied all the colors in the bottom of the container he held. “We did good, didn’t we?”
“Yeah, we did,” he said. “Can we take the metal detectors out again after lunch?”
“We sure can. There’s plenty of sand left to explore.”
“I still can’t believe we found a skeleton key,” he said, sounding practically giddy. “It’s like Christmas morning out there, only without the wrapping paper and bows.”
Chuckling, I brushed a lock of hair off his cheek. “It certainly is.”
His hand covered mine as he nuzzled into my touch, with no hesitation when I withdrew the container of sea glass from his hand to set it on the counter beside us.
“Please kiss me,” he whispered.
No sweeter request had ever been made of me. He went up on tiptoes, while I leaned in, my hand coming to rest on the small of his back as I dragged him closer and pressed my lips to his. He smelled of the strawberry ChapStick he reapplied several times throughout the day, his lips soft because of it, smooth asthey parted so our tongues could meet. The moan he let out was practically a whine, urgent and needy as I deepened the kiss and tangled my fingers in his wild hair. Everything about him set my senses on fire, from the way he stepped closer, mashing his chest against mine, all but shoving me back against the counter, to the gasps he made that left my board shorts feeling tight. Hell, we’d even gotten him a couple pairs down the street from the shop where we’d picked up our art supplies.
Warm fingers toyed with the hem of my t-shirt like he was afraid to shove his hands beneath it. My chest was heaving by then, burning to come up for air and give him more skin to touch. He was in a similar state when we broke the kiss, face flushed as he tried to help me remove my tank top, only for us to get it caught on my ear when we tried to yank it off over my head. It wound up twisted around my wrist when we got it off, his giggling making his eyes sparkle as he helped tug it free.
The tip of his tongue poked out and teased along his upper lip, then he crashed against me, hands sliding up my sides, then around to caress my back as he rocked against me. Now I wanted his shirt off too, which led to even more wrestling with fabric and dueling tongues that didn’t want to be separated. By the time we broke the kiss the second time, we were both hot, disheveled, and sporting tents in our shorts.
“I, um, think I’d better get those scallops seared if we want to have lunch,” I said, offering him an out if he wanted to take it.
Instead, I received a pout before he nodded and stepped back from me, but only after his stomach rumbled loud enough that I could hear it.
“Fine, but can we consider lunch the pause button and not the stop one?” he said, “Because I was thoroughly enjoying kissing you.”
Chuckling, I nodded, closed the distance he’d put between us, and brushed a sweet kiss over his lips. “Definitely the pause button.”
His smile was as stunningly beautiful as the sunsets I loved. As I gazed down at him looking flushed and mussed and antsy with anticipation in the middle of my kitchen, I was suddenly hit with a pang of longing so swift that words spewed from my lips before my brain took the time to determine if they’d be welcome or not.
“Waving goodbye to you at the end of your trip is going to suck,” I blurted. “Instead of waking up thinking about the waves and the lesson I plan to teach, the only thing on my mind is what time I get to pick you up from your hotel and the plans we talked about the night before. You are rapidly becoming a very important part of my life, and I don’t think I’m going to handle it well when you’re not around to spend time with.”
The last thing I expected was for tears to well up in his eyes and him to throw his arms around me.
“I feel the same way,” he muttered against my chest. “And it scares me because we’ve just met one another, and I’m only supposed to be here on vacation, but after what my boss texted, I’ve been thinking a lot about where my career has been taking me and how little time I have for anything or anyone else. Last night, I lay in bed tossing, turning, and waking up from nightmares where my kitties turned their noses up at me when I came home because they hardly knew me anymore, and all my friends were colorless corporate drones that looked a lot like the robot Robin Williams played inBicentennial Man.”
I winced at the thought of that and of him turning out just like them.
“This morning, while I was having breakfast and a beautiful mimosa that gave me the courage to open my phone and scroll through my contact list, I reached out to the folks I interned forback when I was still in college. My first trip out here was with them, when we came to tour a client’s expansion project and see firsthand all the new products they’d be rolling out the following year.”
“Wait, hang on, how does an advertising firm in Minnesota wind up working that closely with a company located on Maui?” I asked, scratching my head at that one.
His stomach growled again, reminding me that I needed to get the scallops in the pan to sear and the lobster tails in butter so I could start poaching them. I turned so I could wash my hands, only to have him join me at the sink, our hips pressed together as we reached for the soap dispenser.
“Oh man, talk about a love story worthy of a fairy tale,” he said. “The owners met at the University of Minnesota. Koa was from here, and Ethan was from Saint Paul. Their closest friends were the couple I interned with, so when they got their business up and running, it was their friends they turned to for help with advertising and launching their brand.”
As I listened to his story, a spark of hope bloomed in my chest, only to be partially quashed by a bolt of pessimism that nearly extinguished it, because no way was this story leading up to a reality where I’d get to see him past the time he was scheduled to be vacationing here.