I glanced over at Avery, and I saw love shining back at me.
I’d known for a pretty short amount of time that this was the girl I wanted to spend my life with. I wanted a future with her. I wanted to have children with her and grow old with her. Histories be damned, we were in this together and we were looking toward the future. We were ready to bury the past and start living for the present.
And I knew just from the look in her eyes that she was in it with me one hundred percent.
“I just can’t believe it,” Quinn said. She looked at me. “You’ve been a player forever.” Her eyes shifted to Avery. “And so have you. So how did you two decide this was right?”
“I can’t explain it,” Avery said. “It just feels right.”
My arm was draped across the back of her chair, and she leaned in toward me, pressing a gentle kiss to my cheek. “And somehow I managed to tame this beast.”
I laughed.
“TMI,” Quinn said, looking at us with disgust.
“Get used to it, Quinn,” I teased my sister. “You’re going to have to deal with this at holidays, birthdays, family barbeques, weekly Saturday brunches…” I trailed off.
“I’m invited to all of that shit?” Avery asked.
I grinned. “You’re invited to every event in my future, Ave. I want you there for everything.”
“Oh gross,” Quinn said across the table, but I barely heard her because my mind was on the fact that I had just told Avery I wanted to spend my life with her.
“Nothing would make me happier.” She leaned in and pressed her lips to mine.
I knew before the weekend was over, we’d have a bigger promise to each other. I wanted her to know how committed I was to her and to our future together.
I just had to find the right time to do it.
I wasn’t planning anything huge; I just wanted her to know how serious I was.
That time managed to present itself to me later that evening. Quinn was tired, so she and Reed headed to their room. Avery and I took a stroll around the pool. Tiki torches reflected light off of the water, and the moon lit up the dark night sky. It was quiet by the pool. Soft instrumental music played from some hidden speakers. The music was the only sound breaking the silence of night. Avery and I stopped under some palm trees for a soft and sensual kiss.
She shivered in a cool nighttime desert breeze, and I rubbed her arms as I pulled her against me. “I love you, Ave.”
“I love you, too,” she said softly. She pulled back to look up at me. “You’ve done more for me in the past month than anyone has ever done for me. I’ve never been able to open up to anybody, to reveal the scars of my past, to show sides of myself I’ve kept hidden.”
“You’ve done the same for me. And I don’t want to live without you. Ever. I want you to know you are the only woman for me. I want you to feel confident you are it for me and you always will be.”
“I hope you know I feel the same way.”
“Then marry me.”
She froze.
Oh fuck.
The words slipped out impulsively.
They were words that should have been planned, words that should have been said carefully.
It wasn’t planned. It wasn’t formal. It wasn’t careful.
But it was honest.
The only other time I had said those words to a woman, I’d been shot down.
A piece of me had broken after that rejection, and it was something I was only now starting to get back.
And it had taken this woman standing in front of me with a look of shock on her face to start healing that brokenness.
“Are you serious?” she asked.
I took a moment to think it through.
Even though the words had slipped out unplanned, much like when I’d told her I was falling for her, and the first time I’d told her I loved her, maybe it wasn’t so bad. Maybe the words were meant to slip out. And now that they were out there, I really didn’t want to take them back.
I wanted her to say yes.
I wanted to marry her and to spend the rest of my life showing her how much I loved her.
We’d wasted too much time, and it was time to move forward and start our future together.
“Yes, I’m serious. I don’t have a plan or a ring but I know I want a future with you.”
She pressed her lips to mine, and when she pulled back, her eyes glistened with fresh tears. “Grant, yes. Of course I will marry you,” she whispered.
I grinned. “Yeah?” I asked.
“Yeah,” she smiled.
My mouth crashed down to hers, to this woman who was beautiful to me both inside and out.
Just a few short months earlier, I never would have imagined this was my future. I never would have thought Avery Peterson—one of my sister’s best friends, a girl I’d known for years but who stood in my periphery while I blindly went on with my life—would be my future.
But now that I could see clearly, I couldn’t wait for our future together to begin.
EPILOGUE
SIX MONTHS LATER
Her glass clinked against mine. “Well, Mr. Carpenter, that was certainly worth the wait.”
I chuckled. “Worth the wait?” I asked, taking a sip of my champagne and adjusting the plush hotel bathrobe I’d pulled on after our first bang as a married couple. “It’s only been two days.”
“Two days of torture. I can’t believe your mom forced us to stay apart.”
“Forced” was a little exaggerated. My mom had just kept us both so busy that we didn’t have a chance to be alone. And she made sure someone stayed with each of us—separately—so we couldn’t have sex. Something about traditions, my mom had said. I wasn’t really listening. I had been too busy plotting ways to get my future wife alone.
“She did the same thing to Quinn and Reed before their wedding.”
“I know, but I figured it was because Quinn’s a girl.” She sipped her champagne.
“Get used to it, Mrs. Carpenter. She’s your mother-in-law now.”
She laughed. “I love her. I love your family.”
“And I love yours, too,” I said.
The past six months had been quite a whirlwind. Once Quinn found out about us, it wasn’t long before everyone knew.
I thought back to the conversations we’d had with everybody when we decided on our wedding date. A random Saturday in May didn’t hold any special significance to us, but neither of us wanted to wait. Plus, Avery wanted to make sure one of her best friends would be able to attend our wedding. She chose my sister as her matron of honor, and if we would have waited another month, Quinn would be running the risk of going into labor at any moment. And if we waited any longer than that, Quinn would have had a newborn to tend to.
Turns out the “food poisoning” in Tucson indeed was morning sickness, and Quinn was due June 1.
Avery and I had gone ring shopping together. She had chosen a classic princess cut diamond. I met her parents (separately, since their divorce many years earlier wasn’t amicable), and we decided life was too short to have a long engagement. We were both committed to our future together, and we were both ready to begin it as husband and wife.
I told Avery we could do whatever she wanted; girls, after all, are the ones who plan weddings from the time they first learn what a wedding is. Avery decided on a classy but small event we held at my house—now our house.
It had once been a place of scars and battles and pain, but now it was a place of happy memories. It was a place filled constantly with Avery’s laughter and with the love that bonded us together.
And now it was also filled with a puppy, Avery’s wedding gift to me. She was a perfect little monster, a yellow lab we named Peaches. We both still laughed about our peach yogurt conversation the morning of my sister’s wedding, and Avery had chosen peach and white as our wedding colors.
“I can’t believe it’s all over,” she said, her tone a bit wistful. She took another sip of her champagne
.
“Was it everything you imagined, Mrs. Carpenter?” I asked quietly.
She turned her gaze over to me. “It was so much better than I ever imagined. And the best part is what we started today. Our future is before us, Grant, and I couldn’t be more excited to walk into it with you.”
I grinned at my wife.
“Can we dance again?” she asked.
“Of course,” I said, taking her wine glass out of her hand and setting it next to mine on the nightstand.
I grabbed my phone and found our song. I clicked play and took her in my arms.
“You really love this song, don’t you?” she asked.
I nodded. “We danced to it at Quinn and Reed’s wedding.”
“I remember,” she said as the lyrics to O.A.R.’s “Peace” washed over us for the second time that day. She pressed her lips to mine.
I thought back to the vows we had made that day. We’d decided to write our own, and we both wrote them down even though I’d memorized mine and she’d done the same. But we had the written record of the words to remember them for the rest of our lives.
I’d gone first. “I promise to kiss you every time I walk out the door. I promise to listen to you, to hold your hand, and to laugh with you. I promise to love you and honor you and protect you. I promise to be the man you deserve. I promise to keep a full stock of peach yogurt in the fridge at all times.” She had giggled. “I give myself to you today. There will never be anybody else because you are the one soul put on this earth to find mine. I promise you the world, Avery, because you deserve it. I love you.”
She had wiped a tear away and started her own vows. Her voice had shaken with nerves. “I promise to love you forever. I give myself to you today knowing you will take care of me always, and I want you to know I promise to take care of you, too. I promise you us. We have worked hard to get here, and today I vow I will protect our union forever. I promise you peace. I vow to make you smile every day. I promise I will smile with you in the good times and cry with you in the bad. I love you because you’re my other half. I didn’t know what I was missing until I met you, and I vow today that together we will look toward a future always as a team. I love you.”
I grinned at my wife as I remembered everything we had promised each other.
My wife.
That was going to take some getting used to.
I was used to being the single guy out for a good time, and in less than a full year, I was married to the person who was put on this earth for me. I thought someone else was the one for me, but if that had been true, we would have ended up together. So while the changes and the heartbreak had been scary and painful, it all happened for a reason.
It all happened so I would be available when I finally focused on the periphery and saw Avery waiting for me.
I’d gotten my second opinion. Apparently I was “marriage material” after all.
The End
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
As always, thank you first and foremost to my husband. So much has changed in the past year, even in the past few months, and without your constant support and encouragement and excitement over what I love to do, I wouldn’t be able to find the time to write between everything else we have going on. So thank you for pushing me to write, for helping me make time, and for making sure I’m able to balance it all. And thank you for volunteering to be my business manager. Good luck with that.
Thank you to all of my author friends who support me and drop me encouraging messages, especially Laura Dunaway, Rebecca Brooke, and Theresa Troutman. You ladies rock and I am so lucky that I met you! I never feel like I’m in this alone because I know that I have all of you. A big thank you to the awesome AS101 group. I have learned so much from all of your expertise!
Thank you to my beta readers and to my amazing street team, Team LSD! This team of ladies is like a family to me. We have fun and we support each other, and I’m blessed to have met all of you. If you’re not on the team, send me a Facebook message if you’re interested in joining!
Christine Stanley from the Hype PR, also known as “queen of the nips,” it was awesome to finally meet you in person in Houston, and thank you for putting together the amazing blog tour for this book.
Kellie Montgomery from Eye Candy Bookstore, you do so much to promote and support authors, and I am forever thankful for all you do! It was awesome to meet you in person in Houston, and I’m thrilled to be part of the first Eye Candy Bookstore Anthology (Trick-or-Treat, coming October 15)! Thanks for everything!
Kellie Dennis from Book Cover by Design… thank you for another gorgeous cover. I don’t know how you manage to read my mind, but you do—every time!
Of course to my family and friends… thank you for supporting me and for reading (even if it’s out of your comfort zone) and for making me feel like writing is so much more than a hobby and a dream.
To everyone reading this: Thank you! Please leave a review wherever you purchased this book whether you loved it or not. I would love to know what you thought about Grant and Avery!
And I can’t forget my precious dog, Sadie. Thank you for lying beside me while I write. I know you’re there because you love me, not because I’m snacking on Pirate’s Booty and might throw a piece your way. XOXO
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Lisa Suzanne started handwriting her books on yellow legal pads after she took a creative writing class in high school. She still has those legal pads full of stories, but now one of them is published under the title How He Really Feels. She currently works as a full time high school English teacher, and her favorite part of the year is summer. She has been blessed with the world’s best dog, a supportive family, and a husband who encouraged her to publish after reading one of her novels. She likes the advice of Ernest Hemingway’s famous quote, “Write drunk. Edit sober.”
Web: http://www.authorlisasuzanne.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AuthorLisaSuzanne
Twitter: https://twitter.com/LisaSuzanne24
Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/AuthorLisaSuzanne
Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/lisasuzanne24
Google+: https://plus.google.com/u/0/+LisaSuzanne/posts
ALSO BY LISA SUZANNE
HOW HE REALLY FEELS (HE FEELS, BOOK 1)
Amazon: http://amzn.to/1kNVIY9
Julianne Becker is desperately in love with her boss, Nick Matthews. She has daydreamed about him since the day she first met him a year earlier, but she is firmly stuck in the friend-zone until New Year’s Eve, when the game completely changes and she finds out how Nick really feels about her. They embark on a sexy affair that’s everything Julianne ever dreamed of… except she can’t tell anyone about it. What will happen if anyone finds out about their secret relationship? And how will her lifelong best friend, Travis Miller, react when Julianne begins a relationship with someone who isn’t him?
How He Really Feels is a novel that explores relationships and love between coworkers and friends. It contains some adult situations and is intended for mature readers.
WHAT HE REALLY FEELS (HE FEELS, BOOK 2)
Amazon: http://amzn.to/TI3FDH
He told her How He Really Feels and had his heart broken. Now Travis Miller is trying to move on from the greatest heartbreak of his life by getting out of town. But two nights before his big move to California, Travis meets a mystery woman who grabs hold of his broken heart and gives him hope that he can piece it back together.
Will Travis ever figure out What He Really Feels, or will he be stuck on his first love forever? Will he find his happily ever after?
SINCE HE REALLY FEELS (HE FEELS, BOOK 3)
Amazon: http://amzn.to/1kZPxBk
Julianne Becker has a choice to make between love and history. She needs two men in her life, but ultimatums and secrets are forcing her to choose.
Nick Matthews has a choice to make with potential costs that will put Julianne in temptation’s way. Since He Really Feels what he does for Julianne
, can Nick put aside his fears to ensure that the past doesn’t destroy the future he has always wanted?
Travis Miller thought he made his choice, but obligations may just push out the best thing that’s ever happened to him. Since He Really Feels allegiance to his family, can Travis keep his past and present from colliding?
Julianne and Nick know they should form a united front and make these decisions together, but knowing what to do and actually doing it are two very different things. Will Travis’s presence in their life pull them together or push them apart?
This is the passionate and emotional concluding book of the He Feels Trilogy.
SEPARATION ANXIETY
Amazon: http://amzn.to/SxCAlB
Separation.
We all get one true love in our lives, and it’s up to us to find it. Fate will act and try to push us together, but ultimately it’s up to us to recognize who that one person is when he’s standing in front of us.
It turns out that I recognized who my one person was when I was separated from my husband.
Anxiety.
On the same day I determined that I was finally going to file for divorce, I confessed my secret to Jesse Drake, my swoon-worthy colleague known for his womanizing ways. Jesse invited me to crash with him, and with each new piece of the enigmatic Jesse puzzle that I started to fit into place, I found myself wondering if Fate had pushed us together for a reason.
If only my husband would stop getting in the way of the man with whom I was meant to be.
SIDE EFFECTS
Amazon: http://amzn.to/1iyhO1r
She has been hurt. She has a past of lies, cheating, and pain. She has severe panic attacks when she’s in enclosed spaces, a side effect of a horrible accident caused by a man she thought she loved. Quinn Carpenter has a distinct type: bad boys with dark hair, dark eyes, and tattoos. Tyler, her friend with benefits, fits the bill perfectly. They have fun together and they both know that fun is where their relationship begins and ends.
Quinn’s life is exactly how she wants it until she meets Reed Porter, the typical pretty boy with blue eyes, blonde hair, and zero tattoos. He is the exact opposite of everything Quinn likes.
Second Opinion Page 24