“Whatever,” I muttered, although I did kinda like being referred to so highly. When Lily gave a resigned sigh, I asked, “What’s wrong?”
“I probably should get going.”
“Can’t you stay a little while longer?” Even though we weren’t going to have sex again, I still wanted to be with her, to hold her in my arms.
“I guess so. I just don’t want to get caught.” Her brow did the cute little wrinkle she always did when she was really worried about something.
“Okay, we’ll get you dressed and back. Don’t want you turning into a pumpkin, Cinderella.”
Lily laughed and rose up off the mattress. As she grabbed for her clothes, I couldn’t help watching her a little longer in the candlelight. When she started to pull on her shirt, she glanced at me over her shoulder. “What?”
I shrugged. “Nothing. I just couldn’t help looking at you.”
“I would have thought you would have gotten your fill of finally seeing me fully naked,” she mused, as she pulled her shirt on and started for her sweatpants.
“I could never get enough of seeing you.”
With a smile, she came over to give me a kiss. “I’m going to leave the lingerie here, if that’s okay?”
“It’s fine. We can use it next time.”
She laughed. “We’ll just see about that.”
After one last, lingering kiss, she started down the ladder. I followed after her and walked her to the edge of the woods. “I love you, Lily,” I said.
“I love you, too,” she replied.
Part of me felt completed by making love to Lily, but as she hurried down the hillside to her house, it felt as though she was taking a little piece of me with her, too.
BRAYDEN
THE PRESENT
“Babe, come on. It isn’t that mortifying,” I said, as I tried to coax Lily to stop hiding her face in her hands.
“I just talked about making out in the backseat of your car and how we lost our virginity. I would say that was pretty embarrassing,” came her muffled reply.
Giovanni chuckled. “I’m sorry I needed some details about that first time in the tree house.”
His statement caused Lily to jerk her head up. “Thankfully, they were just the bare minimum.”
Wagging my eyebrows at Lily, I said, “Maybe for him, but trust me, I was reliving them in all their glory.”
“You’re terrible,” she replied, although the corners of her lips did turn up a little.
After clearing his throat and shuffling his notes, Giovanni said, “So, to do a little recap. The original question was what was the most romantic thing Lily ever did for you. I believe you were setting up the importance of this car and how it might play into the most romantic thing?”
“Yes, that was the point of that story,” I replied, with a laugh.
“A ‘68 Challenger was a pretty impressive car to have as a teenage boy.”
“Oh hell yeah, it was. That baby was my pride and joy.”
“Did your parents give it to you?”
I snorted. “No, my parents believed in you getting a job and earning the money for a car. Thankfully, my mom’s dad came through for me. See, she was an only child, and I was the only grandson. He had several old cars he had collected over the years, so when I turned sixteen, he gave it to me.”
Givoanni’s brows shot up. “He must’ve been a special man to entrust such a special car to a teenager.”
“Yeah, he was. When I was just thirteen, I used to go over and wash it for him, put special oil on the leather seats. He taught me a lot about cars.” I sighed. “It’s sad to say, but I was glad he had passed away when I had to sell it.”
“Why was that?”
“Even though in my eyes, it was for a good cause, I know it would have broken his heart.”
“So why did you sell it?”
“To get the cash we needed to fund Runaway Train’s first album.”
Giovanni’s eyes bulged in surprise. “I had no idea that you weren’t with a studio the first go around.”
Shaking my head, I replied, “No, the one that got us the attention we needed to get that first real record deal was from the Challenger.”
Lily reached over and squeezed my thigh. “I really didn’t know if he was going to make it those first few weeks after he sold it. Whenever he would have to go get in the older Honda he’d bought, there would be tears in his eyes.”
I swatted her hand away with a laugh. “That’s not true.”
She grinned. “Yeah, it is.”
Rolling my eyes, I countered, “One time. I cried one time about that car, and she wouldn’t let me forget it.”
Giovanni’s brows lined in confusion. “So if you sold the car when you were twenty one, how does it figure into being the most romantic thing Lily ever did?”
“Well, that’s because my wife is really good at surprises.”
BRAYDEN
The Past
“Are we there yet?” I asked for probably the hundredth time in the last ten minutes.
Lily groaned. “Would you stop? Jeez, I never realized you were so impatient.”
I turned toward the sound of her voice. I couldn’t see anything since she had insisted on blindfolding me. Today was our first wedding anniversary. I’d managed to get a night off the road to fly back home, so we could celebrate. While I couldn’t wait to get my hands on her, Lily had other plans when she picked me up at the airport.