by Marika Ray
“We need to wake up just like that every morning. Promise?” Titus muttered into my neck several minutes later.
I snorted, but liked the idea. “I think I need another room service delivery.” I blew a strand of hair away from my eyes. I was exhausted in the very best way.
Titus propped his head up on his hand. “By the way, I wasn’t joking when I said that bed-and-breakfast I’m building is yours. Take all those good ideas like room service and use them for your own business.”
There went my eyes again. Jesus, this man was too sweet for my emotions to handle. “It’ll be our business. I’m not doing anything alone ever again.”
His eyes heated. “Oh, really…”
“Well, except for girls’ night. And shopping with my sisters. And maybe…” I began to list off things on my fingers.
I didn’t get very far before he pounced, tickling my sides right where he knew I was ticklish the most. That’s what happens when you fall in love with your best friend. They know all your best tickle spots.
Epilogue
Titus - 6 months later
“For the love of blow jobs, woman, have mercy!” I didn’t want to mess up Amelia’s perfectly curled hair, but she needed to get off my cock this instant.
She’d cornered me in the walk-in kitchen pantry, dropping to her knees and unzipping my pants before I could remind her the ribbon cutting ceremony was supposed to start in half an hour. The whole town was set to come to our official grand opening and so far the only one coming was me.
She chuckled, the vibration making my spent cock twitch to life again, which would make it damn inconvenient to stand up in front of the whole community I’d grown up with while I had a boner.
Amelia finally looked up at me and stood, wiping the corner of her bright red mouth. “I left some lipstick. Hope you don’t mind.”
I looked down and, sure enough, she’d smeared it all over my dick, painting him in technicolor. Whatever. It’s not like anyone ever saw him except for Amelia. He could barely keep up with her, it’s not like he’d be stepping out with some other woman.
Besides, I was head over heels in love with Amelia.
I’d had an engagement ring sitting in my gym bag right after her public groveling back in the fall. Amelia would have snooped in every nook and cranny of my home for no other reason than amusement these last six months, but she’d never go near a gym bag or anything else that implied purposeful physical exertion. One of the perks of knowing someone for years and years before you date them. I’d called my mom the day after Amelia and I got back together, asking her to ship my grandma’s ring, the one she’d been saving for me when the time was right. The time just hadn’t been right yet, though. Amelia was a woman who demanded first-class wooing, as every woman should, and I’d had the time of my life doing it.
But today we’d officially open for business, making Amelia’s dream come true.
And today, I’d ask her to marry me, making my dream come true.
If she said yes. Fuck, let her please say yes.
You just never knew with Amelia. I knew she loved me, knew she wanted to be with me, but there was always a wild streak in her. One that begged her to buck social norms and be the wild child. While dating her, I’d made sure she knew her wild ways were one of the best things about her. Wearing my ring wouldn’t come with restrictions. It would come with wings.
Tucking myself back inside my pants, being careful to avoid the lipstick, I grabbed her hand. “Come on. We have an entire town to welcome.”
She giggled, the distinctive sound now part of my life’s soundtrack. Her shirt was coming out of her skirt and I pointed it out before we hit the front door of the house we’d built together. She let go of my hand to tuck it back in, her cheeks turning pink. She wasn’t embarrassed to suck me off in the pantry right before our ribbon cutting ceremony, but she’d blush because her shirt was slightly untucked. The woman would forever remain a bit of a mystery.
She pulled herself up tall. “Ready to show off this gorgeous bed-and-breakfast you built with your own two hands?”
I ran my thumb along her jawline before tossing a lock of her hair behind her shoulder. “Ready to open your own business and be the badass boss bitch you were born to be?”
She grinned and laced her fingers with mine. “Only if you’re by my side.”
“Always,” I replied, opening the door to our new life.
Amelia
“And without further ado, I give every citizen of Auburn Hill, Peacock B & B.”
We’d spent almost the entirety of the last six month arguing over the name of our business. The rebel in me felt it only right that “cock” be part of the name of our B&B. Titus had objected to that, but then relented when I explained that it was the peacock fight that had brought us together and, really, didn’t we owe that crazy bird some credit for his matchmaking?
As we rehearsed, Titus yanked on the ropes at that exact moment, the tarp falling from the sign next to our new bed-and-breakfast. The logo was a colorful span of peacock feathers with a caricature of our house in the middle.
Titus and I moved to grab the huge ceremonial scissors borrowed from the city and cut the red ribbon strung between the pillars on the wraparound front porch. Family snapped pictures and even someone from the newspaper was there to run a story on our new business. Titus put the scissors down and immediately tipped me into a movie-star kiss.
The town all clapped and whistled their approval. All save for Wayne, my old boss, who remained slightly miffed I’d opened up my own place. Word on the street was his hotel had gone into disarray without me there, a rumor that made me feel smug and maybe a little guilty. But mostly smug. Even Big Foot had jumped ship and lived with us now at the Peacock.
Titus brought me back upright, the movement and the rush of realizing my dream making my head feel like it would fly off into the wispy clouds in the blue sky above. Today, anything felt possible, even pie-in-the-sky grand dreams.
“We’ve laid out some food for you, all of which you can order while staying at our fine establishment. Come on in and check us out.” I waved people in the front door and they streamed in, eager to see what we’d brought to Auburn Hill.
“Will there be any peacocks for us to see?” Poppy asked eagerly as she waited in line to get inside.
I smiled. I knew someone would ask sooner or later. “Oh no. Those things are foul.”
Poppy froze, then let out a yelp a hyena would be proud of. “Oh, you jokester.”
Little did she know, I wasn’t kidding. Charlie and Finnie had tried to get us to re-home their wild peacock as our B&B mascot, but seeing the destruction on the backside of their property, I had no interest. I’d keep the peacock on Titus’s ass and call it good.
People hugged me, high-fived Titus, and shared their well-wishes regarding our new business. Citizens, old and new, young and old, came through with smiling faces. Even my third-grade teacher was there, patting my cheek and telling me she’d known all along I’d straighten out one day. Backhanded compliment aside, I was happy to see the turnout of almost everyone in town.
Suspiciously missing was Titus’s brother, Dom. The two brothers had had a falling-out a few months back. I hated how much Dom’s behavior weighed on Titus’s mind, but there’d been a noticeable peace about Titus now that he and Dom had parted ways. Like not cleaning up after Dom any longer had freed him somehow. I wasn’t one to cheer for families splitting apart, but sometimes distance was what was needed to be healthy.
“Amelia!” My sisters came running up the porch steps, squealing and smiling, pulling me into a sister huddle.
Oakley quieted them down with a stern bark. “We’re all incredibly proud of you, Amelia. Congratulations on kicking ass at life.” She craned her neck above our heads. “Where’s Titus? He should be in this huddle too.”
Esme grabbed him and pulled him away from a conversation with Yedda and into the middle of our circle. “Here he is!”
; He spun until he found me, his glazed eyes showing his overwhelm. Yeah, I knew that feeling. Welcome to being part of a family with five sisters. Everything was overwhelming.
Oakley gave a short little speech, congratulating us both, and then they all let out a cheer. Titus grinned so wide I wanted to take him back in that pantry and get him grinning for other reasons. I loved seeing him with my sisters. They were the siblings he never wished he had and yet you could tell he loved them and all their crazy antics.
The girls went into the house, leaving just Titus and me on the front porch. We could hear all the conversations flowing through the open windows, the clink of glasses and food being shared among friends. Our house was full. It had come alive and become a home.
We did it.
Titus pulled me in tight under his arm and we just stared through the front door, both of us lost in the emotion of the moment. My eyes burned and I went with it this time, letting a tear trail down my cheek.
Titus looked down at me and jerked.
“Happy tears,” I interrupted him before he could ask. “It’s fine to cry if they’re happy tears.”
“I like that new Amelia rule.” He leaned down and kissed my forehead. “Now come here. I have something else to show you.”
He pulled his arm from around me and laced our fingers together instead, tugging me to walk around the porch to the backside of our house. Charlie and Finnie were standing next to a large tarped object on the edge of the grassy area we’d toiled over just three weeks ago when we laid the sod ourselves. Lucy and Bain came from around the shed, along with Lenora and Jayden. Hazel burst out of the shed with a dazzling smile and Rip followed her, shaking his head and looking like he wanted to be somewhere else.
“What’s going on?”
I couldn’t think of one thing that could be under that tarp that I didn’t know about. Titus and I had designed every square inch of this property together, including the third floor, which was our own personal wing with a little kitchenette, a master suite, and two extra bedrooms that would make for perfect nurseries.
Titus tugged me closer to the tarp, and when we were right in front of it, Charlie and Finnie gave it a yank, exposing the most beautiful hand-carved pergola I’d ever seen in my life. It put the one at the church to shame with its intricate detail of climbing roses and leaves I could almost believe were real.
My jaw dropped open. I attempted to turn to Charlie, my gaze not wanting to leave the work of art in front of me. “Did you do this?”
Charlie smiled shyly and I knew he had. It must have cost Titus a fortune. It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen, but I didn’t know that we had the money to keep it. While I was doing math in my head—never a good idea even on a calm day when I could cheat and use a calculator—Titus tugged my hand again, bringing us into the center of the pergola.
He dropped to one knee right there on the wood floor and my brain froze in the middle of an addition problem. A smothered sob-laugh from back at the house hit my ears, but I literally could not look away from Titus and the little box he held in front of him. Time slowed down and everything around us faded away. As much as I knew this day was coming, it still caught me off guard. The sight of Titus on one knee and a ring box in hand was enough to make the happy tears start flowing again.
“Amelia Waldo. I promise to always make you cry happy tears, not sad ones. I promise to teach you skate tricks and take you to every dance. I promise to hold your hand when you get tattoos and hold your heels when you need to get in the middle of a fight and heels just won’t do even though you say they make your calves look hot. And they do, by the way. I promise to bring an extra sweatshirt to every bonfire for the rest of our lives, knowing you’ll have forgotten to bring one. I’ll let a peacock kick me in the balls every night if it means you’re safe.”
I gasped out a watery laugh. Dear sweet Jesus, this was such a typical Titus proposal. Sweet mixed with insane. He squeezed my hand and kept going, that quirk of a grin holding me captive.
“I promise to keep you warm at night and let you put your cold feet on me. I promise to somehow give you the two point five kids you want and I won’t let them get mullets even if they beg me for them. I promise to give you everything, Amelia. You want it, I’ll find a way to get it for you. Just like this dream of our B and B has come true today, I’ll make sure all your dreams come true. Just say you’ll marry me.”
His eyes had a sheen to them that only made my tears come faster. I cupped his cheek and kissed him.
“You already have made all my dreams come true, just by loving me,” I whispered.
He smiled and I smiled back.
“Did she say yes?” Vee called out behind me. “Can anyone hear?”
I rolled my eyes and Titus grinned full-out.
I threw my head back and yelled as loud as a Waldo knows how—and you can bet after fighting with four sisters my whole life I could pack quite the decibel. “Yes, Titus, I will marry you!”
All our friends cheered as I looked back at Titus, who stood and popped open the ring box. On a pad of velvet sat a silver ring with tiny diamonds all the way around, with one stunning antique cushion-cut diamond in the center.
“My grandmother wore this ring with pride and now it’ll be yours forever, to pass down to the children we have together.” Titus took the ring and slid it onto my finger.
I stared at it while it caught flashes of light, reflecting colors all around us. It was incredible. It meant I could marry Titus and have him by my side for the rest of our lives. In other words, it was perfect.
A surge of joy so great hit me all at once I jumped and Titus caught me. He staggered back, but held steady as I wrapped my legs around his waist, our lips crashing together in a kiss that sealed the deal.
I didn’t care about anything except this man and our love for each other. The house, the business, the ring. It was all just stuff. I didn’t care if anyone else noticed me as long as Titus did. Him and only him. He finally pulled back to whisper that he loved me, then spun us around and around. I tipped my head back and squealed like I was that girl in The Sound of Music after kissing a boy for the first time and high on life.
A loud honk had us freezing. Titus turned us to see out the pergola. All heads, including my parents’—when had they gotten here?—were turned to the back corner of our acre lot where a tiny stream flowed even in the summer. No less than five brightly colored flamingos smacked their beaks together, long necks entwining in what looked to be an epic snarl. And there, one unassuming peacock hopped back and forth. Instigator or innocent bystander, I wasn’t sure.
“What the hell?” I gasped, sliding down Titus’s body as my legs gave out. “Is that a flock of flamingos?”
“No, it’s a flamboyance,” Titus said calmly, stepping out of the pergola and dragging me closer to the fray.
“Say what now?”
Titus looked back at me. “A group of flamingos is a flamboyance, not a flock.”
Oh well, there you go. All cleared up now.
“That’s enough now, Paul,” Charlie called to his peacock.
The fowl ignored him, hopping into the middle of the fight like he belonged there and fanning out his feathers in a sea of green and turquoise. The flamingos calmed instantly, mesmerized by Paul’s puffed-out strut through the pack of them. Sorry, the flamboyance.
“I’m sorry, but is anyone else seeing flamingos and a peacock right now?” I looked around, seeing all my friends and family with similar expressions of awe as we crept closer to the wild animals.
“Surprise!” Titus whisper-shouted.
I looked at him in surprise, all right. At my frown, he gave me jazz hands, which only irritated me further. “You bought me flamingos?”
“Yeah.” He shrugged like it wasn’t a big deal to buy bright pink wild animals with beaks of fury for your betrothed.
Fuck, that was cool. I used the word betrothed in my head.
Charlie moved ahead of the pack, creepin
g closer to Paul in some sort of weird crouch that set my teeth on edge. Finnie appeared confident in his abilities, so I tried to copy her belief that all would be well shortly.
Paul shook his feathers at Charlie’s approach. The flamingos remained frozen with one leg down on the ground for each of them. The little girl inside me wanted to run straight for them and push them over just for shits and giggles. Thankfully, I’d matured recently and stayed by Titus’s side instead.
Charlie crooned to the peacock in some kind of animal language and got him to tuck his feathers back in and move away from the flamboyance. The two odd companions kept walking in the direction of Charlie’s house. I wasn’t too sure how long you could get a peacock to walk beside you, but for Charlie’s sake, I hoped it was at least the two miles until his property came into view. We all stared after them, Vee breaking out her cell phone to capture the odd moment forever.
“Let’s get this engagement party started!” Esme broke the silence, along with a loud pop as a champagne cork flew through the air in the general direction of the flamboyance.
The little flamingo legs became a pink blur as they tried to fast foot it out of there, not at all happy with Esme’s loud shout nor being shot at. The beaks started pecking and the flamingo fight began again.
I turned my back to it all and surveyed all my friends, family, and fellow citizens spilling out the back of our house, watching the whole thing with the intensity of a Super Bowl viewing party. My thumb found the band of the ring on my finger, twirling it back and forth, still amazed it was there.
“Did you know a group of ravens is called an unkindness?” I overheard Poppy telling some poor, unsuspecting stranger.