Page 32 of The Gingerbread Bakery (Dream Harbor #5)

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Then

‘W as it okay?’ he asked. ‘I mean, did you… I mean, was it…’

Annie smiled from her place next to him on the pillow. ‘It was perfect,’ she said.

He tucked a piece of hair behind her ear. ‘So, no big regrets?’

‘Nope, no regrets. What about you? You haven’t actually gotten a good look at my feet. They might be gnarly.’

Mac laughed and it felt good. A whole other kind of release to be in bed with Annie naked and laughing. He thought it might be the best moment of his entire life. His legs were tangled up with hers under the blanket and her fingers toyed with the chain around his neck.

‘Annie, you could have the gnarliest feet in the world and I would not care.’

She ran a toe along the back side of his calf. ‘You sure you don’t want to check?’ she said with a mischievous smile.

‘I told you; I have no dealbreakers with you. You could have six toes per foot with talons on each one and I’d be totally cool with it.’

Annie giggled, the sound filling him up. The only light in the room was from the Christmas lights he’d let her string over his bed. They lit up her hair in red and green and gold.

‘Maybe I won’t go,’ he blurted out, suddenly terrified of the thought of leaving. Leaving her, leaving his family, leaving his home. Maybe he’d been wrong about all of it.

But Annie was shaking her head, her blue gaze holding his. She dropped the chain, letting it fall back against his chest. She put her hand on his cheek.

‘You have to go.’

‘Maybe not. My mom’s pretty upset about it, and I don’t want to hurt her. I don't want to hurt you.’

‘You have to go, Mac. You can’t stay here for us. Your mom will be fine. I will be fine. You need to do this for yourself.’

He was shaking his head, wanting to argue with her, but Annie kept going.

‘What happens if you don’t go?’ she said.

He opened his mouth to answer but then closed it, changing his mind. He wanted to say that he would be fine if he stayed. He wanted to say he and Annie could be together and they could see where this would go. He could figure out who he was here, couldn't he?

But when he really thought about it, he got that suffocating feeling he always had when he thought about spending the rest of his life in the exact same spot where he’d started.

It made him itch. He thought about how everyone here had known him since he was a baby.

They thought they knew everything about him, but he felt like he didn’t know himself.

If he stayed it would be too easy to just do what everybody else wanted him to do.

Annie was right. He couldn’t stay. He would regret it if he didn’t at least try. If he didn’t at least go see something other than Dream Harbor’s Main Street. If he didn’t at least experience life outside of this small town.

‘Give it a year,’ she said as though she could tell what he was thinking, like she could feel his indecision, caught between his fear of staying and his fear of leaving.

‘A year?’

‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘Give it a year. A year to travel around, a year to figure it out, to decide what type of Mac you want to be.’

‘And then what?’ he asked, wanting more of Annie’s plan for him, already feeling better now that she was putting parameters on this crazy idea of his.

‘And then,’ she whispered, moving closer, letting her fingers run through his hair, ‘and then you come back to me.’

He sighed, relieved and happy that she wanted him to come back, that she wanted him at all.

‘Where does that leave us in the meantime?’ he asked, because they were definitely an us now. He couldn't pretend otherwise anymore. He and Annie were something. He wanted them to be something, and he couldn’t leave without knowing what that something was.

She was pressed against him, her mouth nearly on his. He was ready for a repeat of what they’d just done and the thought of not having this, of not having her for an entire year made him want to cry.

‘You could send me postcards,’ she said.

‘Postcards? That's what you want us to be? Pen pals?’ he asked, feeling Annie’s lips curve into a smile against his.

‘Pen pals. It’ll be romantic,’ she said.

‘Can I text you?’

‘Maybe.’

‘Call?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘What’s not to know, Annie? I can’t not talk to you for a year. I can’t not hear your voice for three-hundred-and-sixty-five days.’

She kissed him, nibbling on his bottom lip. ‘Until this month, you lived your entire life not caring at all about whether you heard my voice.’

‘That was back when I was an idiot,’ he said, and her laugh brushed across his face.

‘I don’t want to ruin your big year of adventure by being the thing holding you back. If the point is for you to get away from Dream Harbor, I can’t have you calling here all the time.’

She was right. He knew she was. He knew if they tried to keep this relationship going while he was gone, he would always be looking back.

His arms were wrapped around her waist, and he pulled her closer wanting to feel the full length of her body against the full length of his.

‘Okay, postcards it is,’ he agreed, kissing her deeper until she was moaning again, her hands clinging to his shoulders.

‘What about other guys?’ he said, coming up for air.

‘You can see as many other guys as you’d like,’ Annie said with a smile.

‘Noted,’ he said dryly, and Annie laughed.

‘And what about you? Will you be seeing other guys while I’m gone?’ He shouldn’t have asked but he couldn’t help himself. At this moment, with Annie in his arms, he absolutely hated the idea of her seeing other guys, even though he knew it was insane to expect her not to.

‘How about this?’ Annie said. ‘If either of us gets serious with someone while you’re gone, we’ll be honest about it. Non-serious things don’t need to be reported.’

‘Is kissing a serious thing?’ he asked, working his way down her neck.

‘Probably not…’

‘What about kissing here?’ he asked, exploring places he hadn’t gotten a chance to the first time around.

Annie gasped. Another sound he’d remember all year.

‘That’s a bit more serious.’

Mac smiled. ‘Good to know.’

Annie tugged him up by his hair. ‘I want you to do what you need to do, okay? Don’t spend your time thinking about me.’

‘I can’t promise that. There's no way I can stop thinking about you, Annabelle,’ he said, planting a chaste kiss on the tip of her nose.

‘Okay, fine,’ she agreed, like he was really putting her out. The big smile on her face told him otherwise. ‘You can think about me the whole time you’re away.’

‘Deal,’ he said.

‘I will miss you while you're gone,’ she said, ‘but I’m excited for you.’

‘Thanks,’ he said, kissing her again. He wanted to say more. He wanted to tell her he was falling in love with her but that seemed unfair to say now. He would save it for when he got back.