“You wanna know I didn’t attack you like so much of me wanted to?”
“That’s why I asked.”
“Because,” I said, kissing her softly on the forehead, “you deserve better than that.”
“Better than you?” she countered before kissing my chest and laying her head heavily back down.
“Better than our first time being in a dirty lake in a lust-driven stupor.”
“Those are some fancy words for a cowboy,” she snickered.
“I’m serious,” I scolded. “I mean that you deserve better than that. I want our first time to be at the right moment, with candles and rose petals and all of that cheesy stuff.”
“I didn’t take you for such a romantic, Noah Tucker.”
“I’m normally not, but you bring out my inner poet. Things are different with you, Lace. Unlike they’ve ever been with anyone else. I just can’t bring myself to allow it to be purely physical with you with no meaning. It’s got to be perfect.”
“I see,” she all but whispered. “I’m not sure I understand why, but…”
I laid there for a minute, holding her, quietly thinking about what I wanted to say next. Finally, I landed on the exact words that would sum it all up. “I love you, Laci Daniels.”
She sat up and looked at me, covering her chest with the blanket as if she suddenly had some modesty to protect that she didn’t when we were swimming. “What did you just say?”
For a split second, I considered rescinding my statement, telling her that I cared about her or something like that instead, but the look in her eyes wouldn’t let me be anything but honest with her. So, I repeated myself. “I love you, Laci Daniels.”
As she lay back down and curled up closer to me, she responded. “I love you, too,” she said softly.
I kissed the top of her head again and wrapped my arms around her. “I know it’s only been a matter of weeks that we’ve been together, but you bring out something in me that I didn’t know existed. You’re beautiful, funny, smart, caring, and just amazing. I didn’t know what I wanted until I met you, but it didn’t take long to recognize it once it was in front of me. You’re what I want.”
“You know, I turned Mark down just after my graduation because I thought I didn’t want any kind of relationship at the moment, but you changed my mind. All of the little things about you add up to be exactly what I want and honestly, what I need.”
“I love you,” I repeated. Saying it felt like a weight had been lifted and I just wanted to tell her a thousand times over.
“Yeah, you said that,” she said with a light chuckle. “And, for the record, I love you, too, Noah Tucker. Also, a month isn’t too soon to say you love someone. My mom always told me when you know, you just know. There’s no set timeframe you have to wait. As far as I’m concerned, waiting to say it only strains things. It makes you both wonder what the other one is thinking. I like this much better. Did I ever tell you my parents were married after dating for two months? And, they were inseparable until the end. That was twenty-three years ago.”
“What are you trying to say?” I teased.
“Oh, shut up. If you’re implying that I think we should get married, you need to slow your roll.”
“Just checking,” I sighed. “You have no idea how much courage it took me to tell you that I love you.”
“I think I might have an idea.”
We laid there for another hour or so, just enjoying each other’s company and the afterglow of saying the “L” word for the first time. Just as I started to drift off, she sat up. “I’m getting a little chilly,” she said.
“Well, it’s no wonder,” I murmured. “Considering we’re both naked and laying between two wet blankets.”
“You add a little bit of warmth, but still, I think I’m going to put my clothes back on.”
“Fair enough,” I shrugged and rolled over onto my stomach as she stood up. With a long stretch, I glanced up to watch her shimmying into her shorts before hooking her bra in front of her stomach and spinning it around to put on the proper way. I army crawled for a few inches until I could reach her, then I grabbed her ankle. “Come back! Come back, I’m lonely!”
“Oh, shut up,” she said, throwing my shorts so they landed on my face. “Get dressed. I want to go lay somewhere more comfortable.”
“You expect me to go commando?” I balked. “My skin is far too sensitive for that. Gimme my boxers first.”
“And, you call me the princess. You’re so dramatic,” she said as the whipped them at my chest.
“Says the actress,” I responded, wiggling into them while still lying on the blanket.
When we’d both finished putting our clothes back on, I spread the blankets out on the bed of my truck to dry while Laci climbed into the cab. I joined her, started the engine, and began to drive. Combing her hair out with her fingers, she was weirdly quiet, even for her.
I reached out and took her hand. “What’s the matter, babe?”
“What’s going to happen?”
“We’re going to go back to my house and cuddle in bed?” I offered.
“I mean in two weeks. That’s all that’s left before I have to go back home to start filming. And, don’t you go back out on the circuit?”
“Yeah, but let’s not think about that.”
“Don’t tell me not to think about it, Noah. We have to think about it. I don’t want to have just told you that I love you and continue things just to have them fade away when I have to leave.”
“We’ll talk about it later, babe. For now, let’s just enjoy the moment. Please? I promise we’ll talk about it; just not tonight.”
She looked as if she was going to disagree, but decided against it. She nodded and turned on the radio. A love song started to play through the speakers, and instead of changing the station like I expected her to, she started to sing along, making a few meaningful sideways glances at me while she did. Her voice was gorgeous; it was obvious that she’d been singing all her life. Each note that floated from her mouth made it sound as though it were the only way it was ever meant to be heard. When the last note had ended, she stared at me as I drove.
“I’ve never appreciated that song as much as I do now,” she said. “It’s one of those songs you like and just sing along with mindlessly until you feel the same way she does.”
Strangely enough, I knew exactly what she meant. “As cheesy as it sounds, I’ve noticed that, too. Love songs have had a different meaning to them lately.”
“Good to know I’m not just crazy,” she laughed.
“Oh, no, you still are. It’s just that I am, too.”
If I was honest with myself, I’d definitely miss the moments like this when we had to go in separate directions: the little moments when we could laugh and poke fun at each other and see the other’s reaction. I didn’t exactly know what would happen when we were apart, but I did know that I wanted to try as hard as I possibly could to make things work, assuming she wanted the same thing, of course. I had no reason to believe that she wouldn’t, so I crossed my fingers that we were on the same page. Truth be told, I really wasn’t ready to talk about it because what if I was wrong? What if she thought this was a wonderful summer romance where she fell in love, but didn’t want to put in the effort of maintaining a long distance relationship for possibly months at a time? I knew I might still have Jaime if Laci decided to move on without me, but after experiencing how alive I felt with Laci, I knew I wouldn’t ever want something so meaningless and crass again.
I was in love, and it felt so damn good to be able to admit that to myself.
So what did I want to happen? I guess I had my answer.
Chapter Seventeen
Laci
It seems that nothing goes quite as expected, and one thing is for certain: I didn’t expect to go skinny dipping with Noah and come away with my virginity intact. The thing is, though, I didn’t have the slightest problem with it after he told me why he didn’t think we should
have sex just yet. If you think about it, he didn’t even want to have sex; he wanted to make love to me, and I think that’s actually incredibly beautiful and romantic.
I thought that things like making love only happened in movies—with the rose petals and candles and music in the background like he described—but he was a living testament that sometimes, art actually can imitate life. The things that happen in movies can be a reality. As he drove home from the lake, I couldn’t help but hope that’s what would happen later on when we climbed into Noah’s bed to “cuddle” as he’d mentioned. I also wanted to talk about what would happen when I went back up north, but since he wanted to hold off on that for now, I wasn’t going to push the subject. It had been a nearly perfect night and he wanted it to stay that way. We would talk about it when he was ready to talk about it. That didn’t mean that I didn’t think about it, though.
I wanted to find a way to make everything work out, whether it was easy or not. After the night we’d just shared, I thought it was safe to assume that he wanted the same thing, but there was still the matter of how we’d make things work. There were so many questions we didn’t have the answers to and all of the unknowns made me a little uneasy.
As I lay down in bed beside him, what I did know was that I loved him. What I didn’t know was how exhausted I was. I did manage to pull out my phone, send a text to Sara telling her that I was spending the night with Noah and not to worry, then kiss Noah.
The next thing I knew, I was waking up in a dimly lit room alone. I padded barefoot out of Noah’s room and toward the sound of cooking in the kitchen. I found him standing in front of the stove wearing a ridiculous flowery apron and whistling the tune to the alphabet. I walked up behind him and wrapped my arms around his middle, stroking his all-too-wonderful abs.
“Good morning, beautiful,” he said, touching my hand before he flipped a pancake. “Sleep well?”
“Like a rock,” I replied. “What are you doing?”
“Isn’t it obvious? I’m making breakfast! I’ve already got the bacon made, and pancakes will be ready soon; do you want any eggs?”
“I could go for a sunny side up,” I answered, kissing him between the shoulder blades and going over to the coffee pot filled to the brim with the beautiful, aromatic liquid of the gods. I poured myself a cup, then poked around in the fridge until I found the cream and added it to my coffee. A good, long sip later, I sighed. “You know, it’s okay that we didn’t do anything last night because I’m pretty sure this is better than sex, anyway.”
“You’re lucky my parents aren’t here because if they were and heard you say that, they’d lose their minds,” he laughed. “And, you only say that because you haven’t done it with me.”
“Or at all,” I corrected.
He stopped what he was doing and cocked an eyebrow as he glanced over his shoulder at me, a smile I didn’t quite know how to describe slinking over his lips. “When the moment’s right, we’ll fix that,” he assured me. He tipped the pancake he was making onto a plate and carried it over to set down on the table in front of me. He handed me the butter and syrup and dished out a few pieces of bacon on the side before cracking two eggs into the very same pan that he’d cooked the bacon in. “This is my secret,” he mentioned. “I cook the eggs in the bacon grease. Gives them more flavor that way.”
“If that’s the secret to your washboard abs, I should eat eggs cooked in bacon grease more often.”
“Have you seen yourself naked? You’re perfect. Trust me.” He made my stomach do flips again; even though he said words like that almost daily, I never got tired of hearing them. When the eggs were finished, he put one on my plate and one on his own before he took a seat next to me and started to dig in. “So,” he said, his mouth full of a mixture of pancake and bacon, “about that conversation you wanted to have last night.”
“What about it?”
“Well, let’s have it.”
“Okay.” I decided to do what Emily always told me to do: cut right to the chase. “I don’t want things to end. I want to make this work even when the summer is over and we’ve both gone back to our jobs. But I’ve seen that little green monster of yours, and one thing you have to be aware of is that, as an actress, I might have to kiss other guys sometimes. It is part of the job.”
“I can handle that, as long as you’re aware that as a devilishly handsome bull rider who scores in the nineties, the ladies will be fawning all over me.”
“As long as you’re still all mine, I’ve got no problem with that.”
“We’ll have to work out the details, you know. Like who’s gonna visit who and when and how,” he said as he put another pancake on my plate and two on his. Then, he drowned the whole plate, egg included, with syrup and dug in.
“It’s not like a relationship can’t last without conjugal visits,” I said, winking at him.
“True, but they certainly might make things easier. I mean, we don’t know just how hard long-distance relationships are yet. And, it’ll be made even harder by the fact that we’re always together now. I mean,” he said, leaning forward to kiss me with his syrupy lips. “Aren’t you going to miss this?”
“I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t. But from what I can tell, my filming schedule runs seven days a week. You know how it is with show business; time is money, and they’re not going to give up a single minute they have to film, especially since it’s already been delayed by three months for my sake. So, it looks like if we’re going to see each other for the first few months, it’ll have to be because you flew in to see me.”
“That’ll be hard, but I think we can work something out. Almost any day that I’m not competing, I’m training. If I want to stay in the Ninety Point Club, I’ll have to work harder than ever, so I probably won’t be able to take more than a day off at a time.”
I shrugged. “It’s better than nothing.”
“And, I’ll have to make things painfully obvious to Jamie. She’s not the brightest bulb in the chandelier, so if I don’t spell it out explicitly, she might not get the message.”
Suddenly, a flare of jealousy stung me. “Who the hell is Jamie?”
“Oh, I never told you about her?” he said, his mouth full of pancake. “She’s our manager slash gate man, and the blondie I’ve been, well, semi involved with off and on for the last couple of years. She wanted to come back to Alabama with me.”
“I guess it’s a good thing she didn’t because then we probably wouldn’t be together, would we? And, you have a thing for blondes, don’t you?”
“Always have, toots. Take me or leave me. And, no, we probably wouldn’t. She’s far more territorial than you are. We’ve never actually been a couple, but she’s made sure to do her best to keep all other females away from me.”
“Just tape a picture of me to the front of your hat. That way, every time she tries to do anything, you can point to the picture of me and be like ‘She’s watching!’ It’ll totally freak her out!”
“You’re twisted.”
“Hey, you’re the one who fell for me, bub. Take me or leave me,” I mocked.
“I have no doubt we’ll figure out the details. The important thing is that we both agree to try and make things work.”
I put on my best Yoda voice and said, “Do or do not; there is no try.”
“Okay, fine, geek girl. We will make things work,” he agreed, shaking his head. “This relationship is going to make it, Lace. We’ll be okay. I promise.”
After that, there was nothing more to say. I crushed my lips against his and kissed him as deeply as I could.
***
I wasn’t so sure things would be the same after our conversation about the summer ending. For some reason, I halfway expected that we would be distant and less affectionate, but in reality, it was the exact opposite. I chalked it up to the fact that we knew we were going to have something to look forward to when the summer was over, but from that moment on, we were close as close could be.
&n
bsp; The peak of the summer came two days before I was set to leave. Having spent the last two months teaching Jack all kinds of lessons that only made sense to Noah, Noah finally decided that it was high time to get Jack on the back of a mechanical bull. Aunt Sara was a little wary of it, but Noah assured her that it was a million times safer than riding a real bull, especially since there were cushions all around the mechanical kind. That was more than could be said for the real kind. Besides, he reminded her that Jack would need to ride a bull eventually, otherwise, what were all of the lessons for? Plus, most of the injuries that happened from bull riding were apparently not from getting thrown off, but rather from getting trampled, which obviously couldn’t happen with a bull that didn’t even have legs.
Naturally, Aunt Sara wanted to go along so she could “supervise,” which was actually code for “freak the hell out and scream every second of the ride,” but you know, it is what it is. We drove to the complex where one of Noah’s buddies had the mechanical bull set up amidst a huge sea of thick, fluffy pads to fall on, clearly ideal for someone just starting out. Aunt Sara insisted Jack put on a helmet, which Noah had already intended, and she even tried to get Noah to wear one, too. He pointed out that he was twenty-two years old and happened to be a professional, to which Aunt Sara tried to argue, but lost.
Before Noah let Jack get on, he gave him his own “starter kit.” Jack was ecstatic to unwrap a package and find a jacket with a chest pad, a glove, and a water bottle that displayed the words “Bull rider in training.”
Dirty SEAL (A Navy SEAL Romance) (The Maxwell Family) Page 113