Happily Ever After

by Jenn Faulk

~Cammie~

  She woke up with her face in his shirt.

  Her lips were lingering over his heartbeat, slow and strong, reassuring and right. She smoothed her hands out on his chest and glanced up at him, trying to discern just how asleep he still was.

  His eyes were closed, with his eyelashes just barely touching his cheeks. His mouth was just slightly open, his perfect lips just inches from her forehead. She debated moving her hand from his chest so as to touch those lips again… but even she couldn’t deny her poor hand the pleasure of resting where it was.

  She remembered everything they’d said to one another. She remembered David, kissing every one of her fingers, telling her he needed her, expressing how he felt about her beyond the work. She let out a small sigh at the magnitude of all she was feeling in thinking through it all, and David moved in response. With his eyes still closed, with him still asleep, with his arms still around her, he pulled her closer, and put his nose to her hair, breathing her in.

  Mmm… yes, yes, yes.

  What was good for the gander was surely good for the goose, so around the pounding of her heart, she closed her eyes and breathed him in as well, stretching up to his neck, taking in all of him.

  She had no idea how men, stuck on an airplane for this long, were supposed to smell… but heaven help her, she concluded that the world would be a glorious place if they all smelled like David Connor.

  “Cammie?”

  Her lips were on his neck. And it was long past the point of blaming her lack of inhibitions on her drug use. (Though it had worked as a great excuse earlier when she’d been coherent enough to store in her heart every word he had said. All those lovely, wonderful, amazing words...)

  Her mind raced for a moment, grasping for an excuse. There were none. So, she simply smiled and said, “Good morning. Or afternoon. Or whatever. I have no idea where or when we are.”

  “Somewhere, sometime,” he murmured, watching her face for a long moment, wonder in his eyes.

  They simply stared at each other.

  “Are you –” he asked, just as she asked, “Are we –”

  Silence again.

  “Go ahead,” he prompted.

  “Oh,” she said, swallowing. “I was just going to ask...” Her mind was drawing a complete blank, especially as David tilted his head to one side and watched her for a long moment.

  “Going to ask what, Cammie?” he asked softly.

  Cammie. She loved that name. She loved hearing him say that name.

  “Uh, yeah,” she mumbled. “Are we anywhere close?”

  He nodded, looking at his watch. “About three hours out probably,” he said.

  And he continued watching her, curiosity in his eyes. She would’ve loved to ask him what he was thinking...

  “What?” he asked again, his voice barely a whisper.

  Pull it together, Camille. He has enough to think about without you acting on all of these feelings that...

  “I was just wondering,” she said, “what the plan is once we get there.”

  He took a quick breath. “They’ll have someone pick us up and take us straight to the convention center. Have to wear our fancy, Kait-approved clothes,” and at this, he grimaced, “then on to makeup and hair and all of that.”

  “Fancy,” she smiled.

  “And they’ll have us say a few things before the dinner meeting. Just the Texas convention leaders at that one. We’ll do the presentation we put together.”

  “And then?” she asked.

  “The big time,” he said softly. “I’ll be up there preaching for the general assembly. And my family, I’m quite sure.”

  “And me,” she said. “I’ll be sitting on the front row, cheering you on.”

  “I’ll just watch you, then,” he smiled. “Pretend we’re back in Namibia and that this is no different than what I’m really called to do.”

  “Your biggest fan, right here,” she said, blushing only after she’d said it, surprised to hear herself offer so much.

  David said nothing for a long moment. “I have a movie on my laptop,” he murmured, pulling it out from the seat in front of him. “Wanna watch with me? It’ll make the time go by more quickly.”

  Well. That was that.

  She nodded, a little deflated by all that he hadn’t affirmed, all that he hadn’t confessed, all that he’d left unsaid...

  ... but not unexpressed, she marveled, as he murmured “come here,” pulled her back into his arms, and kissed her softly on the forehead, even as she took the earbud he offered her and slipped her arms around his waist.