Carpentry and Cocktails

by Smartypants Romance

  Sighing, I heaved my body out of the truck and jogged into the diner. It was busy, which it always was at this time of day, and by the time I got back into the truck with a box of fresh Long Johns, I was beyond ready to get home and flop face forward into bed.

  Funny how last week, I thought a week of silence from Joss felt like forever. Now, two days seemed like two months.

  Brian was fine with me taking a couple of days, reassuring me that he knew what a big move this was, and that I needed to make sure it was the right fit for me too.

  That I knew.

  I'd known it from the moment I walked through the doors and into the practice facility on the outskirts of Seattle. The fit was more than perfect. But signing the dotted line and pressing my foot down on the gas pedal without more clarity from the person who held my heart in her incredibly stubborn hands was a bit more complicated.

  "You just need to keep busy is all," my mom had said earlier that morning when I finished working out, unleashing my frustrations on the heavy bag bolted to the ceiling in the corner. "I've got an errand you can run. It'll keep you from moping."

  One errand turned to two, then three, then four. If I got another text from her, I'd toss my phone into a lake. Mainly because she'd been dead wrong. Staying busy didn't help. Nothing helped. I was ready to crawl out of my skin.

  I wanted to shake her. Kiss her. Make love to her. Fold her in my arms and promise her that we could do this. That it would be as amazing for her as it would be for me. But it was easy for me to say, the one with the job offer and a sure thing waiting at the end of a very long trip.

  My truck rumbled slowly through town, my hands turning the wheel by rote.

  I'd driven these streets my entire life and recognized almost every person I passed. People who I went to high school with now walked down the sidewalk with their spouses, maybe a kid or two.

  My phone rang as I took a right toward my parents' house and I groaned.

  But when I picked up, it was Connor.

  "Hey," I said with a smile. "How was the honeymoon?"

  He sighed contentedly. "So good that I won't tell you shit about it."

  I laughed. "Did you even leave the room?"

  "Oh, once or twice," he drawled. His voice turned serious. "Hey, we were gonna stop by and say hi to Mom and Dad now that we're back. You around?"

  "I'll be back in about five minutes. I'm out running some errands for Mom."

  "All right. See you later."

  He hung up, and I tossed my phone onto the bench next to me.

  But when I pulled in, I didn't see his car or Sylvia's.

  What I did see had my heart racing.

  In the middle of the driveway, with her arms crossed and two bags on the ground next to her, was Jocelyn.

  It wasn't the stubborn set of her mouth that had me pausing before I got out of the truck. It wasn't even the bags next to her. It was the look in her eyes—my favorite coffee mug blue, the one I used every day because its color came closer to hers than anything I'd ever been able to find—was brimming with a challenge. On fire with it.

  Try to get rid of me. I dare you.

  I was smiling as I opened the door, and it had her lips curling back at me.

  "Beautiful afternoon," I said, leaning up against the ticking, clicking hood of the truck as I faced her.

  "It is."

  I found myself staring at her lips, which widened even farther at my pointed study.

  "What are you doing here, Joss?" I asked, lifting my eyes to hers.

  "I'm picking you up."

  One eyebrow lifted slowly. "That so? Where are we going?"

  Casually, she lowered her hands into her lap. "We're going to the airport."

  That had me straightening and walking toward her. "We're, what now?"

  "Lord save us from a master's grad." She sighed, rolling her eyes. "Airport. Planes. Flying."

  I gave her a long look.

  Now her nerves showed just a touch in the quick swallow. The slight flush to her high cheekbones. The rapid blink of her long lashes. "We're going to look at apartments in Washington. After you sign your contract."

  "Joss," I said, crouching in front of her and gripping her hands with mine. But I'd be a fool to deny that excitement had my skin buzzing like a split open wire. "I could've handled that about a million times better. I don't blame you for being upset."

  "Shut up," she whispered, bringing our hands to her mouth so she could kiss our intertwined fingers, just as I had a couple of days ago. "Yeah, you should've told me right away. You could've brought up it up a different way. Coulda woulda shoulda doesn't matter right now. It's done. We're both stubborn, and I'll probably always freak out over things that surprise me, just like you'll probably have neat little names to the way you feel long before I do. I will definitely drive you insane from time to time."

  "Oh, that's a guarantee, Sonic."

  She laughed. "I want to go with you. I want to do this together."

  "You're sure?" I whispered, sliding my hand around the back of her neck.

  Joss nodded. "Someone will think it's crazy. Think we're too young, or we haven't been together long enough, but that doesn't matter either."

  "No?" I was so impossibly in love with her. "What does matter?"

  Her fist clutched at my shirt and pulled me in so that her forehead rested on mine. "What matters is that it's you and me. It always has been. Five days, five weeks, five months or years, the time doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is that you love me"—she paused, pulling back so that I could see her eyes—"and that I'm just as in love with you."

  I wrapped my arms around her, lifting her easily from her chair as we sank back together onto the ground. She sat on my haunches, her arms tight around my neck. My mouth found hers, and the kiss that was waiting was sweet and full of promise. Her tongue touched mine as her fingers dug into my hair.

  We stayed there, lips brushing softly, her nose grazing mine and the curls escaping from her ponytail tickling the side of my face.

  I pulled back and smiled. "Did you really pack my bag?"

  "I did. Do you know how many boxer briefs you have?"

  "I hate doing laundry."

  She laughed. "So do I. Heaven help us."

  I glanced back at the bags—one for her and one for me. "So this wasn't just for show?"

  "Nope." Joss tilted her head to the house. "The errands your mom sent you on were to give me enough time to pull this off. She booked the tickets while I packed."

  "Nice work," I muttered, trying to ignore the warm, aching spot in the middle of my chest at the fact she'd done all this. That she was in this with me. That she was mine. "When do we have to leave for the airport?"

  She lifted her arm to look at her watch. "In about fifteen minutes. I'll need extra time to get through security."

  I slid my hands up her back, tilted my head to the sky, and whooped loudly. "We're going to Seattle!"

  Joss was laughing when I kissed her deeply.

  "You're excited now," she said. "Just wait until the apartment hunt begins."

  I held still while she braced her hands on her chair and lifted herself up into it. "Why's that?"

  "Are you kidding?" She lifted her bag into her lap and handed me mine. "You'll need space for a big dog and a place with big doors for me. I'm a high maintenance roommate."

  My hands gripped her armrests as she tilted her chin up for another kiss. "You're forgetting a really, really big bed," I whispered.

  "I love you," she told me, eyes sparkling and mouth stretched in a smile.

  "Because I want a big bed for us?" I teased.

  Joss shook her head. "Because of all of it. Just … because you're you."

  We kissed slowly. I might have been a man cursed, but when she took my hand, nothing else mattered.

  Epilogue

  Jocelyn

  Two months later

  "I swear, if you don't move these boxes out of here today, I'm kicking you out."
r />   His heavy sigh was loud from the bathroom attached to our bedroom. "The romance is dead already, huh?"

  When I snickered loudly, Nero lifted his head from where he was curled up on Levi's side of the bed. I folded the sweater in my lap and added it to the pile of laundry. "It will be if you don't move them."

  Levi popped his head out of the doorway, his toothbrush stuck in the side of his mouth. "I'll move the boxes, but Sonic, you're stuck with me."

  My lips curved up because this was about the fifteenth time he'd made comments like that in the past couple of weeks since we'd made the long drive to Washington.

  Not-so-subtle remarks about our future, the certainty of us being together. He wasn't making them because he thought I needed the reassurance. I was all in, happier than I ever could have imagined, even among the chaos and stress that came with a cross-country move.

  "Eh," I said flippantly. "Maybe I'll find some swoony Seattle hipster who knows his recycling rules and would never let boxes fill up the second bedroom because he knows they could be used to make some fancy hipster paper or something."

  Levi attacked from behind, burying his mouth in the side of my neck and blowing raspberries into my skin while I laughed helplessly. His arms wrapped around me as the tickles turned into sweet kisses onto the curve of my shoulder. My hands gripped his forearms, holding his sexy, frustrating, non-box moving ass in place.

  When he sucked the lobe of my ear into his mouth, my nails dug into his skin. I felt his lips curve up into a smile when they did.

  "No hipsters for you, Miss Abernathy," he whispered, pecking a kiss on my upturned lips before he sat in front of me on the edge of the bed and took my hands in his.

  "You know, I had no clue that underneath your easygoing façade was a chest-beating, possessive Neanderthal just waiting to be unleashed." My words were meant to tease, but sometimes, I couldn't help but marvel at how sure, how certain he was. We were so young even though, by Green Valley standards, we should've been married already at this age. In Seattle, though, we had a decade to go before anyone expected us to be settled and popping out babies.

  His eyes searched mine, his mouth opening and closing a couple of times before he spoke.

  "There's something I never told you," he said, his fingers twining through mine. "And it might sound a little … crazy."

  "Oh gosh, now what?" I eyed him. "Is it some weird, disgusting quirk you've hidden all these years? Because we signed a twelve-month lease, and I really don't want to move again if you're about to tell me something about you is a deal breaker."

  Our house—a small two-bedroom bungalow on the south side of Bellevue—was perfect for us. All on one floor, wide doorways, a covered patio large enough for Nero to be able to go outdoors, and a kitchen that I could maneuver easily in. After our first trip to Seattle, we'd both decided that downtown life wasn't for us even though we loved to explore it on the weekends. If he was about to tell me something freaky, I'd really, honestly kick his ass out and keep the house for myself because I loved it.

  "I don't think it's deal breaker status," he murmured, still smiling at me. Ugh, we were disgusting. All he had to do was smile in my general direction, and I wanted him to do naughty things to me. "Do you remember me telling you about when my parents met?"

  Insert my confused blinking. "Uhh, I think so? They were super young, right?"

  Levi nodded. "Fifteen. My dad told us the story a hundred times growing up. Just like we heard the story about how his dad met his mom. And how my great-grandpa met my great-grandma and the same for their parents."

  "Levi," I said on a laugh, "what are you talking about?"

  He let out a slow breath. "I used to think their stories were crazy, that it wasn't true, that the men in our family were … cursed in love."

  My eyes narrowed. "What now?"

  "Not cursed in a bad way," he rushed to add. "But, it's like, every man in the Buchanan family falls in love once, and it's fast, and once they meet her, they know. And there's no going back, no one else could ever come close."

  As he said it, eyes serious and glowing and intense in a way I'd never seen, I felt my cheeks get hot. But still, I laughed under my breath. "You can't be serious."

  "Trust me, until the day I saw you, I thought the entire thing was just some wacky Southern family story."

  I licked my lips. "And what happened the day you met me?"

  Levi smiled again, and I felt that smile in my heart.

  "My world shifted," he answered, leaning forward to give me a soft kiss. "I don't know how else to explain it. Before then, I would've bet a million dollars that love at first sight wasn't real, couldn't be real."

  I sat back, staring into his face. "Levi, you're seriously telling me that the day you saw me, not even the day we talked, you fell in love with me. That some weird family legend had us … like, fated or something?"

  He shrugged one shoulder. "I don't know what terms to use, Sonic. Fate or destiny or a curse, all I know is that once I met you, there'd never be anyone else. Not ever."

  "That's why you asked me out even though we'd barely spoken," I said, my brain furiously trying to replay that day in the community center more than five years earlier. It wasn't cemented in my memory, not like it was for him, I had to assume. For me, it was the day I met my best friend, and some snippets of it were clear, and some were fuzzy. I rubbed a hand over my heart, that organ currently flopping around in my chest like a gasping fish.

  "Are you freaked out?" His thumb traced the knuckles of the hand he was still holding.

  I was shaking my head before I'd really processed my answer. "No. Not freaked out."

  With a laugh, he cupped my face and pressed a sweet, sweet, lingering kiss on my lips. "Good. Because I kinda like living with you."

  "I love you," I told him, my mouth brushing against his as I spoke the words. "I'm really glad that your wacky family curse exists."

  He laughed. "Me too, Sonic. Me too."

  We kissed again when I abruptly pulled back. "Dude, you're going to be late. What are you doing?"

  "Dude," he repeated, "I've got plenty of time."

  Our house was about thirty minutes north of the Wolves training facility, and he was supposed to be at work in forty-five minutes.

  "You're not even dressed, Levi."

  He rolled his eyes but stood from the bed, dropping a kiss on my head as he did. "It'll take me four minutes to get ready."

  "Men," I muttered. "You don't even know how easy you have it."

  Levi was still laughing as he grabbed some athletic pants and his black Washington pullover. His phone buzzed from the top of our dresser, and I turned my chair so I could grab it for him.

  * * *

  Grady: Tell me that moving to Green Valley is a good idea because I think I'm trying to talk myself out of it.

  * * *

  With a grin, I handed him the phone, watching his smile broaden as he read his cousin's text.

  "So obviously Grady hasn't been cursed yet," I said.

  Levi typed out a response before looking up at me. "Not yet, but they were raised by their mom out in California, so I don't think they ever actually thought it was true. She and my uncle Glenn had a nasty divorce when I was little; I don't even remember them being married because they met at college out west. Kinda makes it hard to believe in love at first sight if your parents are the example, you know?"

  I nodded. "Are he and Grace really moving to Green Valley?"

  Levi shrugged. "I don't know. I told him they should. Uncle Glenn would love having them around more and so would my parents. And I think it would be good for both of them. Grace hates her job in LA, and Grady's whatever the hell tech job he does is going to send him to an early grave. I told him he should start a new business in Green Valley. Guided hikes and camping trips and stuff, bring in companies to do employee retreats and morale building stuff. He could make a killing if he found the right partner."

  "I think they should too," I said, thinking ab
out my conversation with Grace at the wedding. "Besides, that town could use some new Buchanan blood now that you're gone."

  "I suppose it could."

  "And," I added, "maybe the Buchanan curse only works in Green Valley. They might move there and find their person right away."

  Levi froze, glancing over at me with a speculative gleam in his eye. "Why, Miss Abernathy, I think you may have just figured out something that no one in our entire family ever has."

  I snagged the front of his shirt and dragged him down for a kiss. "That's because I'm a freaking genius."

  "My humble little hedgehog," he said against my mouth.

  "You're going to be late." I shoved at his chest.

  "Love you," he called out as he left the room.

  I didn't respond, waiting until he paused at the end of the hallway to look over his shoulder at me.

  "Don't you have something you want to say to me, Joss?"

  "Move the boxes, Levi, then I will."

  "Stubborn, crazy-ass woman," he muttered.

  "And I love you too," I shouted right before he left.

  When he passed the bedroom window on the way to his truck, I caught the wide smile on his face.

  If figuring out what I wanted was the biggest, scariest, most beautiful part of living, then I was in for the biggest, scariest, most beautiful life, because this, exactly this, was what I wanted.

  The End

  Acknowledgments

  I feel like I need to start with thanking Penny Reid, first and foremost. The mastermind and evil genius behind Smartypants Romance, and who introduced this group of authors to each other and gave us an opportunity that we’ll never forget. Some I knew before, most I didn’t, and it’s been such a mind-blowing experience. (M.E. Carter, Jiffy Kate and Ellie Kay, especially, who dealt with the most, in regard to my rambling messages and random questions.)

  Besides Penny (and Fiona Fischer!), the biggest, hugest, longest cyber hug is reserved for Brittany Sisk. THANK YOU, Brittany, for making sure Joss was realistic. For making sure that she made sense for someone who sees the world from the same vantage point. Your sense of humor and candor about the reality of your life absolutely influenced Joss, and I could not be more grateful that you were willing to read for me and give me such wonderful, honest, and helpful feedback.