He shook his head. A hint of a wicked smile played around his lips, and his eyes held a glimmer of heat. “There’s no way I’m waiting that long.” He bent to brush his mouth over mine right there in front of everyone, and oh yeah, we were definitely public now.

The taste of mead wasn’t so bad that time.

Nineteen

I’d meant to catch up with Daniel at pub sing, but once the Gilded Lilies had finished their final set of the day, I felt obligated to stay with the girls as they got out of their costumes down at the Hollow. Caitlin stayed with me since Emily was her ride, and by the time we got back to the front of the Faire it was over for the day. Pub sing had just ended, and patrons were filtering out through the front gate. I went over to the Marlowe Stage, but it was empty too. Not a MacLean in sight. When I got to my car I checked my phone, but there wasn’t a text from him either. Then again, he knew I didn’t keep my phone on me, so I tried not to read too much into that. He knew where I lived—he’d probably be by later.

But by the time I’d taken a long, hot shower and gotten into my most comfortable yoga pants, I realized that he hadn’t actually said he’d come by. I’d just assumed he’d come over tonight, but “sooner than earl-eye in the morning” wasn’t exactly a concrete plan. I checked my phone to make sure he hadn’t called while I was in the shower. Nothing. Hmm. I twisted my hair up and put water on the stove for some pasta for dinner.

“Is he ghosting us, Benedick?” It seemed unlikely, but it was also weird to not hear from him. The cat didn’t answer, opting instead to wash his butt. Great. Helpful.

Just as the water started to bubble on the stove, there was a knock at my door. The sound was loud, echoing through my quiet apartment and shattering the thoughts that had started to spiral in my head. I hurried to open the door.

“There you are.” I leaned on the doorjamb and tried to look casual, as if I hadn’t been checking my phone every fifteen seconds for a text from him.

“Here I am.” He bent to kiss me, a real kiss this time, one that didn’t need to stay all polite and closed-mouthed in front of witnesses, and any residual annoyance I may have had flew out of my brain. “I was going to text you like I always do,” he said when we came up for air, “but I thought, why do that when I can see you instead.” Daniel took in my yoga-pants-and-messy-bun ensemble and grinned. “I was going to see if you wanted to get dinner somewhere, but you look pretty settled in . . .” His eyes widened as he took a sniff of the air. “Not to mention that whatever you have in here smells delicious.”

I pulled the door wide and ushered him inside. “It’s just spaghetti. I threw sauce and meatballs in the slow cooker this morning, and there’s tons of it. Come on in and have dinner.”

“Yes, please.” He followed me into the kitchen, where I threw some salt into the boiling water, followed by the pasta. I pulled down another plate for Daniel and dinner was an intimate affair, not so much because of the romantic ambience but because my dinette table was really, really small. But we barely noticed as we worked our way through a carb-laden dinner of pasta and about four pitchers of ice water. Faire could dehydrate a person.

Daniel refilled our glasses and added another slice of lemon to his before leaning back in his chair with a happy sigh. “I can’t tell you the last time I had something home-cooked. Probably not since the holidays?”

I scoffed, though I couldn’t help smiling at the praise. “This was hardly homemade. Frozen meatballs and sauce?”

“Still better than takeout.” He raised his plastic tumbler to me, and I clinked it with mine.

“Come over anytime.” I meant it. Daniel could move in, for all I cared. Squeaky bed and all.

Daniel was mid-sip when his cell phone rang, a custom ringtone that sounded like Celtic fiddles. He groaned and reached for his back pocket. “Dex.”

My heart thudded at the name, but I brushed past it. “You need to take it?”

“Yeah. He probably forgot how to . . . I don’t know. Order a pizza on his own or something. Be right back.” He answered the call on his way out the front door. “Hey, man, what do you need? . . . No, I’m out . . . I don’t know when I’ll be back . . .” He shot me an exaggerated eye roll as he pulled the front door behind him. I didn’t blame him for leaving; my apartment was basically one big room, so there was nowhere to go for privacy unless you wanted to hide in the bathroom. The front stoop was his best bet.

I stuck the dishes in the dishwasher and the leftovers in the fridge, and then reached for my own phone. Emily had created a Facebook album called “First Day at Faire as Mrs. Captain Blackthorne,” which was just as insanely cute as it sounded, including a selfie of Simon as the pirate and Emily as his bride, taken early in the morning before Faire had started for the day. There was something about a wide gold band on the pirate’s finger that made him look complete.

I’d just finished clicking through the photos and leaving emoji-laden comments, when a text came through from Daniel. He’d sent emojis of his own: three eye rolls. I snorted, and before I could reply he sent another one: Be back inside ASAP, believe me. I smiled as I typed a response: You know where I’ll be. Phone still in my hand, I wandered toward my bed under the eaves, switching on the fairy lights and reclining on my pile of pillows, while the murmur of Daniel’s voice filtered in from the other side of the front door. There was something about him, here in my space, that was so comforting. I could get used to this.

Meanwhile, back on my Facebook feed, my high school BFF Candace’s baby was now walking! “Huzzah,” I said under my breath. She was nearly a year old; should I stop thinking of her as a baby? She was toddling around now—didn’t that qualify a kid as a toddler? I had no idea, but I still left a heart-eyes emoji on the video of the kid stumbling through the living room and almost falling on the dog, because even if we were nothing more than Facebook friends these days, I was at least going to be a good Facebook friend. Spent the day with your little sis, I added as a comment. How is she already in high school?! We’re getting old!

A click of a camera shutter startled me, and I looked up to see Daniel in the middle of my living room, his phone pointed toward me snuggled up in bed with my cat and my phone.

“I’ve pictured this in my head for so many months.” A soft look came to his face as he glanced down at the image he’d captured. “Is this what you looked like, all those times we were messaging each other?”

I hadn’t thought about it like that before. “Usually,” I admitted. “Sometimes I was on the couch on my laptop, but late nights when we would text just before I fell asleep? I’d usually be in bed on my phone.” I patted the mattress. “Right here.”

“Hmmm. Right here, huh?” He dropped his phone onto the side of my bed and ducked into my little bedroom space. “I have to say, I did a pretty good job of picturing you . . .” He crawled onto the bed and up my body at the same time, and I clicked my phone off and set it next to his with a grin as he did so. “. . . But real life is much better than pictures. Just like this . . .” He dipped his head down to kiss me, his mouth lingering on mine. “This is so, so much better than texts.”

“Mmmm, you think?” I grinned against his kiss, and he responded with a nip, his teeth tugging gently on my bottom lip.

“Oh, I think.” His hands glided up my sides, pushing up my tank top, and what do you know, he didn’t complain about my squeaky bedsprings this time around.

Later, I reached for his phone and scrolled through to his photos to the one he took of me earlier. “Okay, I take it back,” I said, sitting up and frowning at the phone. “I usually look better than this. At least I hope I do. I’m deleting this.”

He plucked his phone out of my hand. “Don’t you dare. I need that picture. I need more pictures. In fact, I’m going to purchase more cloud storage so that I can have all the pictures of you on my phone that I can take.”

“Then take a better one.” I pushed the blankets aside.

“Where are you going?” He hooked his hand around my upper arm, stopping me.

“To put on some makeup,” I said. “Maybe even do my hair. If you want pictures of me, I want to not look like a swamp witch in them.”

“Nope.” He tugged on my arm, pulling me back into the bed and into his arms. “You look perfect like this. Your hair’s all tumbled and tangled . . .” He ran his fingers through my hair, which had long since come out of its messy bun from earlier. “Your cheeks are pink, and you have the sweetest smile that I’ve ever seen in my life. I put that look on your face, and I want to document it.” He aimed his phone at me, and even though I made a show of trying to cover my face and wrestle the phone away from him, my heart glowed at his words. How could I say no when he said things like that to me? I even retaliated, picking up my own phone and taking pictures of him too, while he laughed and pretended to protest. He looked so comfortable, so right, here in my bed tangled up in my sheets. It seemed he’d always been here. And in some ways, maybe he had.