One Year Later

 

When I woke up, Harper wasn’t in bed next to me and the sheets felt cold when I ran my hand over the bed. I listened for sounds in the apartment and heard Harper in the kitchen.

When I joined her, she was standing in front of the stove. I leaned against the doorpost and folded my arms over my chest, watching her for a while. She was perfect in every way. Her long red her hair was pulled up into a messy bun, and I traced the curves of her body in her pajama shorts and tank top. She hummed while she worked and swayed from side to side a little.

I walked toward her and wrapped my arms around her from behind, hugging her to me. She turned her head and I kissed her on the cheek.

“Morning, beautiful,” I said.

Harper smiled. “How did you sleep?”

“Lonely without you. What time did you get up?”

“I wanted to cook breakfast for you. I’m making omelets.”

I turned her head and kissed her on the mouth, long and deep. “You’re a star,” I said, and let her go, walking to the fridge. I grabbed the milk and drank out of the container.

“Get a glass,” Harper said.

I closed the container and put it back in the fridge. “Done,” I said.

Harper hated it when I drank from the milk container. She glanced at me, irritated, but trying to hide a grin, so I knew I was home free. A plate of bacon stood steaming on the counter next to the stove and I grabbed a piece.

“Can’t you wait until I’m done?” Harper asked.

“It’s my house, not the restaurant. I can pick food when I want for a change.”

Harper shook her head and laughed. “You're incorrigible.”

“It’s too early for big words,” I said.

I took another piece of bacon for good measure and Harper swatted at me. I laughed.

“You were never this fussy when you were a hostess,” I said.

“I was always too busy to realize how annoying you could be,” Harper said. “I can’t imagine Greyson likes having you in the kitchen.”

I shrugged. “I’m Greyson’s boss, I say what he likes and doesn’t like.”

Harper chucked. “Oh right. You’re cocky today.”

“I’m always cocky. But you love me for it.”

“More like I love you despite it.”

I loved our back and forth banter. It was the same as it had been from the start when I first had hired Harper and Greyson, but in our marriage, it was even more intense. It was even more fun and I never had a dull day with a wife as sharp as Harper was. I loved her so much.

After Harper and I had gotten married, I had promoted her to restaurant manager. She was damn good at her job and I hadn’t had to take a step back the way I had initially thought. It was great to have her as my manager, in fact. She seemed to know exactly what she needed to do, but Harper was a natural leader.

“It’s a treat that you’re cooking for me,” I said. “When you were a hostess you stayed out of the kitchen. Now I can’t get you to stop cooking.”

Harper laughed. “It’s funny, usually men want their women in the kitchen, not out of it.”

“If I must have you out of the kitchen, then I’ll have you in the bedroom,” I said, and waggled my eyebrows at her. Harper laughed.

“Like I said, incorrigible.”

“I should have hired you in the kitchen at the restaurant,” I said, watching Harper dance between two pans on the stove, making omelets and grilled mushrooms.

“Can you stop thinking about work all the time?” Harper asked. “Not today. Today, I want it to just be us.”

She gave me a pointed look and I knew she was trying to tell me that it was a special day. I played dumb.

“I can’t help it,” I said. “Bumping you up to manager made me have to hire Agatha, and she’s twice your age and smokes like an ashtray. I don’t know how anyone can take that many smoke breaks and not log her job as a half-day position instead.”

Harper laughed. “You just don’t like her the way you like me.”

I walked to Harper and pulled her against me, grinding my hips against hers. “Oh, that’s for damn sure.”

She laughed and jokingly pushed me away.

“Let me finish this or I’ll burn the mushrooms. Set the table or something.”

I did as she asked, putting down two placemats on the dining room table with knives, forks, and glasses for orange juice. When the food was ready, Harper brought our steaming plates to the table before going back for a pitcher of orange juice. I also noticed she had put a vase with flowers on the table that she must have prepared earlier. I didn’t know where she found the flowers.

“This looks delicious,” I said. “You should do this more often.”

“I wanted to do something special,” Harper said, and looked at me again. I knew what she was doing, but I carried on with my act. I took a bite of the omelet—ham, cheese, and tomato—and washed it down with the orange juice that Harper had poured from the pitcher.

“Delicious,” I said.

Harper nodded silently and started eating as well.

The past year with Harper had been amazing. We had found an apartment together close to the restaurant; nothing too fancy despite all our money, but I had bought more expensive furniture and we had fancy kitchen appliances and nice cars. There was nothing wrong with living a little, but we kept our feet on the ground.

Living with Harper was a dream. I hadn’t known much about her as a life partner when we’d gotten married—our story was everything but conventional. The past year had been full of surprises, emphasizing how much I liked about her every time I learned something new.

She wasn’t fussy, she was neat and clean without being pedantic, and she didn’t take hours in the bathroom or the shower. She took almost as little time as I did in the mornings, and everything at home ran like clockwork. Harper was nothing like the other women I’d been around before, which was exactly why I was madly, deeply, completely in love with her. She was a breath of fresh air compared to my life before which had become fucking stale.

At the restaurant, things had been going well, too. With the money, I had expanded, building a deck for when the weather was great and a play area for kids that turned my restaurant into a family destination overnight. Harper had the idea to run specials for different holidays, like Valentine’s Day and Easter, and business was better than ever.

Greyson was head chef in my kitchen, now. He had a pastry chef, a sous chef, and two interns beneath him, and he was in his element as he presided over his little kingdom. Some people flourish with the more responsibility you give them. Greyson was one of those.

I had also bought Zach out. He’d still had a few shares in my restaurant from his early investment to help me get on my feet and giving him that cash back had been the best feeling in the world. I had never been materialistic and had always cared about the human element and what experiences could do for me. However, having the cold hard cash to give to him and knowing that my restaurant was completely my own felt great.

Two food critics had visited the restaurant in the past year and we had become a blip on the tourist radar. We were starting to get visitors from out of town because they had read about us on TripAdvisor or read our Google Reviews and liked what they saw. I had a look at every review that came our way. Naturally, there were occasionally customers that weren’t happy, and I tried to really hear their complaints and make changes when warranted, but most of the time my restaurant was described with words like eclectic, innovative, creative, and different. Words that were music to my ears.

Now that our restaurant family had grown and there were more people to keep an eye on things, Harper and I intentionally scheduled time away from work to spend together. The first year of the restaurant had been all work and no play, and that had paid off. It wasn’t time to slack off by any means, but we were getting to a point where we could breathe.

And all I smelled when I breathed in was a successful future.

“What should we do today?” Harper asked, halfway through the meal.

“I want to go riding,” I said. “Do you want to come with me?”

Harper looked at me, shocked.

“You want to go riding?”

I nodded. “It’s such a nice day. You don’t want to come?”

Harper shook her head slowly. She was getting upset. I knew what day it was. I knew that today we had been married for a year. But I was letting her believe that I’d forgotten about it, intentionally ignoring her hints and planning something else for the day. I had plans and wanted to surprise her, but I couldn’t do it with the right impact if she knew I’d remembered.

“I won’t be gone the whole day,” I said. “Maybe we can get takeout for dinner.”

Harper put down her fork loudly and I knew she was officially angry, now. I was pushing her buttons and I knew it. But I had to do this even if it felt like shit.

I helped Harper clear the table after breakfast and we washed up in silence. She wasn’t speaking to me. Afterward, I took a quick shower. Harper didn’t join me like she often did. When I was done and dressed in my biking gear I found her in the living room, reading a book.

“I’m off,” I said, kissing her. “Thank you for breakfast. It was great.”

Harper nodded without saying a word. I patted my pockets and looked around for my keys.

“Do you know where my keys are?” I asked.

“Maybe where you put them last,” Harper said tightly and left the room. A moment later the bedroom door closed a little louder than was necessary. I sighed, hating the tension. I found my keys exactly where Harper had suggested—where I’d left them. I left the apartment, locked up behind me and I walked to my motorbike. When I started it, the engine growled into the morning air, music to my ears. I pulled out of my parking spot and looked up at our bedroom window. When I pulled out onto the street, I revved my engine loudly.

Sometimes when I did it, Harper came out and blew me a kiss like she was my princess in the high tower and I was her knight in shining armor. It was cliché and adorable. This time, she ignored me. Even when I revved a few more times so she would know it was me.

I was rubbing it in. Having her upset with me would be worth it after I had taken care of everything.

Out on the open road, I drove out of Seattle. I hadn’t saved the location on my phone in case Harper might accidentally find it. I hadn’t written a number down or saved it. I had done everything so sneakily, she would never find out.

When I pulled into the driveway, Henry came out to meet me.

“You’re right on time,” he said. “I was skeptical at first when you said you wouldn’t contact me—people hardly ever stick to arrangements.”

“This one is important,” I said, and pulled off my helmet before shaking Henry’s hand.

Henry was a retiree with a small place that had his house on the one end and a small, worn out barn on the other. It had drawn my attention when I’d driven past the property a short while ago. I had stopped to talk to Henry and he had turned out to be an agreeable guy. After I’d explained my love story to him and his wife, Esther, they had been more than happy to offer up their barn. Esther, also retired, liked spending time doing gardening and scrapbooking, she’d told me. They were a lovely couple.

The building was made up entirely of dark wood that had silvered over the years, with creeper plants covering the one side of it and a quaint garden that Esther maintained herself. It was picturesque, and she had offered me a magazine about some decorative shit that sported her barn and the garden on the front.

“It’s very romantic,” she had said.

When they’d shown me the barn the first time, I’d had to agree. It was perfect for what I wanted to do with Harper.

“Esther is out on the town today, you know how women can shop,” Henry said. “But the barn is ready for you.”

We walked to the barn together. I noticed the flagstone path that led through the little garden had been scrubbed, the lawn had been mowed and the flower beds were free of weeds.

“It looks amazing,” I said.

“Wait until you see the inside,” Henry said. “Esther let her imagination run wild.”

I wasn’t sure if that was a good or a bad thing, but I kept it to myself. Esther and Henry were transported by our story of improbable love, soulmates thrown together through unlikely circumstances.

When Henry opened the tall barn doors, I couldn’t believe what I saw. I had been skeptical when Henry told me he’d let Esther loose in the place, but it was perfect.

It was exactly what I wanted for Harper.

“Thank you, for everything,” I said, turning to Henry. “I’ll be here tonight at seven on the dot. And don’t forget, whenever you go to town again, you and Esther are welcome to The Spiced Cow for a meal on me.”

Henry smiled and shook my hand, assuring me they would be by, and soon.

When I left Henry and his perfect barn, I drove back to Seattle to arrange the meal Harper and I would have. I had booked a caterer that would set up at six—and Henry was expecting him. I finalized with the chef and paid the outstanding amount.

I had just a few more things to take care of before I would head home to surprise my wife, the love of my life. A visit to the jeweler, a stop to pick up my tailor-made suit, and a trip to the florist before I arrived home.

I was excited to show Harper what I had in store for her. She was perfect and I wanted to show her how much I loved her.