Three months later

It’s a brisk Friday night in February. Sebastian has been driving me around for what seems like forever, though he won’t tell me where we are going.

“Are we there yet?” I ask, adjusting the blindfold and taking a deep breath. I’m tempted to reach up and remove it, but I don’t.

“Almost,” Sebastian says, and I swear I can hear him smirking even though I can’t see a thing.

“Seriously, where are we going? I feel like we’ve been driving in circles forever.”

Sebastian laughs, and I wiggle in the front seat of his truck.

“Don’t worry about it, baby. Don’t you trust me? After all we’ve been through.”

“Yes of course, but I just like knowing where we are headed.”

He reaches across from the driver’s seat and pats the skin of my thigh.

It’s a cold February night, but I insisted on donning a black skirt. Lucky for me, Sebastian’s truck has a new feature: heated seats with a self massaging feature.

“I just want to make sure you are good and surprised for dinner tonight. This is a special celebration for your book coming out this weekend.”

I lean back and enjoy the heat of the chair warmer on my body.

“At this point, we could be on a plane back in Nashville by now.”

The truck jolts to a halt, and I hear Sebastian put the engine into park.

“We’re here!” he exclaims. “Don’t move yet though. I need to do something.”

“What now?”

He reaches across and I feel him unbuckle my seatbelt. “You look gorgeous tonight.” He whispers in my ear, his voice grizzly.

“I wish I could see you to tell you the same. But you know, I’ve got this.”

“It’s okay. You can feel this.”

He guides my hand to his bicep, and I feel the hardness of his muscle over his jacket.

“Have you been doing extra pull ups in the morning?” I exclaim.

“Nah,” he answers. “I have been doing a lot of cross training on the weekends though.”

“Cross training? You’re gonna have to tell me about that.”

“Oh. Let’s just say it involves keeping my body hovering above a certain someone as I do a lot of this.”

He leans in and surprises me with a soft string of kisses that start at my neck and work their way up my jawline, until he lands one on my cheek, and finally puts one on my lips.

I moan softly and my whole body tingles. I squeeze his arm, and the fact that I still can’t see a thing enhances all the other senses.

He drags a single finger from my ear down to my chin and kisses me once more.

“Not fair,” I breathe. “You’re getting me all hot and bothered and we haven’t even gotten to the actual date yet.”

“Oh I’m sorry. Does it turn you on when I do this?” He kisses me softly on the lips again and slips a hand between my thighs, running it ever so gently closer to my panties.

“Sebastian,” I whisper, my legs quivering. “I’m getting so turned on.”

“Shit, sorry babe. I need to show you this first.”

“Don’t lie. You’re not sorry you turned me on.”

“Okay fine. Sorry I’m not sorry. But I do have to show you something.”

He removes the keys, and gets out of the door on his side.

Walking around to my side, he opens my door and takes hold of my hand, helping me out of the car.

Outside now, I can hear a few odd people chatting in the night on the sidewalk. My heels click on the concrete as Sebastian guides me across the street. Taking hold of my shoulders, he turns my body around. I keep my eyes closed underneath the blindfold.

“Can I please see now?”

“Wait. Keep your eyes closed just a minute more. I’m going to take off the blindfold and then cover your eyes with my hands.”

I do as he says, and he stands behind me while he covers my eyes with his hands.

“One. Two. You sure you’re ready?”

“Yes! For the love of God just show me what it is.”

“Three,” he says as he lets his hands drop to my waist. I open my eyes, and I’m nearly blinded by the red, yellow and blue neon lights of a big sign in front of the brick building that was formerly Blackwell Country Pizzeria. My jaw drops in awe at the new wording of the sign.

Instead of saying BCP, it says Blue Pizzeria.

“Oh my gosh. It looks amazing!”

I spin around, still in Sebastian’s arms.

“I thought it was appropriate since we had our first awkward encounter here.”

I shrug. “I was pretty awkward back then. I’ll give that to you.”

“Smart. But awkward. Come here, Blue.” I get on my tippy toes to kiss him, and adrenaline pounds through me.

“So are you ready for dinner?”

“Sure!” I say. “I’m starving.”

“Good. We’ve got a lot of celebrating to do for release weekend for your book.”

I hold his arm as we cross the street. Sebastian holds the door open for me. “After you, my lady.”

“Oh, you’re such a gentleman,” I say, glancing over my shoulder. “More guys should—“

My thoughts are interrupted when I notice that there isn’t a single sound coming from the restaurant on a Friday night. It sounds suspiciously silent.

I whip my head around and see banners draped throughout the restaurant that say. Congrats Brett Blue on your book release!

“Um, Sebastian, what is—“

“Surprise!” shout a dozen or so people as they jump out from behind the bar, and from various pieces of furniture throughout the restaurant.

“Holy crap,” I mutter, as well as a few other explicatives, and I literally jump up when I see them all.

“What’s this for?!” I ask, turning toward Sebastian.

“Your book releases tomorrow. You put so much work into it. So I invited your family, friends, and some of my family here to celebrate.”

I see the faces of my good friends and family. My mom, sister, Crystal and Crystal’s little sister all all here.

“Wait. So Mom, you knew about this all along?”

“Macy told me.”

“Oh my gosh.” I stare at Macy. “I thought I was doing a good job keeping this book a secret. Apparently not.”

Crystal’s little sister shrugs. “My mom says I can’t read your book until I’m eighteen. But I like the pictures you are putting up on Instagram. And that cover? So hot. I wanna be an author someday. And knowing that Macy’s big sister became an author? That inspires me to think if you can do it, I can do it too.”

I meet Sebastian’s mother and father, too, as well as his brother Liam and his girlfriend.

Sebastian’s grandparents are there too.

For a while, we mingle and have drinks, and I’m peppered with questions about the new book. I answer questions as best I can, and everyone pulls up my Instagram and ogles the cover model. Finally, we sit down to eat pizza.

“Bossman with Benefits,” Crystal says, holding a slice in front of her face. “However did you decide on that topic?”

Sebastian chimes in. “We’ll never know,” he says sarcastically, wiggling his eyebrows. “This book will go down in history as being totally made up. Historians some day will try and figure out how Brett came up with the idea.”

I push Sebastian’s shoulder, and my face goes a little red. “You know, I don’t think it’s necessary to talk about where I got my inspiration. I’ll just let you guess for yourself.”

“What I want to know,” my mom adds, “is where you got such a sexy cover model. I hear they are expensive.

My hand finds Sebastian’s leg under the table, where no one can see what my hand is doing.

My mom absolutely doesn’t need to know that I asked Sebastian to be the cover model, and then cropped the picture from just above the mouth to make sure no one would recognize him.

“Ah, I’m not sure,” I say, pretending to squint off into the distance. “I think my cover designer found him on some random site or something.”

“I swear I’ve seen that guy before somewhere,” Crystal says, staring at me as she shovels a piece of pepperoni pizza into her face.

Sebastian’s hand meets mine underneath the table, and he squeezes it. It’s a small gesture, and it’s not erotic, like so many of our adventures have been. But there’s something about the way he does it. Lightly touching my hand, he runs his middle finger back and forth on my palm.

He sends a chill through my entire body.

Sebastian changes the conversation topic away from my book, and refocuses it on my sister’s offseason soccer training regimen. I take a deep breath and space out for a minute, remembering that fateful night years ago when an asshole customer went off on me for some pizzas that didn’t get delivered.

Sebastian had my back then, and he has my back now. I originally thought I might feel embarrassed to tell my friends and family I’m writing those books—the ones where blowjobs are described in full and no details of sexual encounters get away.

With Sebastian at my side, stroking my hand, I feel so liberated and so lucky to have a man who is cocky on the outside but a humble country boy at heart, and who supports me no matter what kind of crazy ideas I come up with.

The corners of my lips curve upward in a slight smile, and I rub his forearm. To my left sits Sebastian’s grandparents, and as I glance at them I notice something. His grandmother rubs her husband's arm in the same way I’m doing right now. It’s not an erotic gesture necessarily, but it warms my heart deeply.

“Brett? What do you think about that?”

I’m jolted out of my dream, and Sebastian’s brother Liam is asking me a question.

“Think about what I just said. You write romance novels. What’s the key to a long term relationship?”

I look at Sebastian, and he smirks at me, awaiting my response.

I shrug, glancing around the table at all of the faces who are eagerly awaiting my response. I think back on Sebastian and my torrid romance that started out as just friends with benefits and evolved into something so deep I still have a hard time totally defining it. A smile crosses my face as I picture myself wearing nothing but an apron and cooking Sebastian dinner.

“Sometimes, you just gotta get a little crazy.”

Sebastian wraps his arm around me. “That you are, Blue.”

As I fall into his arms, I notice his grandmother is smiling ear to ear at me. She winks.

“The Blackwells always fall for the crazy ones,” she says, and I don’t know if that’s a dig or a compliment.

“I’m just happy I know I’m with a man who will go above and beyond to make me happy. He’ll do everything. And I mean everything.”

Sebastian and I squeeze hands under the table, and I wonder just what our everything will be in the future.