Two years later

“Does my face look fat in this?” I asked Ash, chewing on the inside of my cheek as I studied the screen.

“You’re gorgeous,” he answered from the next room.

“That’s not what I asked!” I huffed.

He was no help at all. If I fiddled with the filter, I could probably add to the contouring in my neck. It didn’t matter how advanced the cameras became—in vlogs, everyone looked weird.

In the previous two years, my blog had taken off. Six months ago it spawned a YouTube channel that was attracting retired Baby Boomers with lots of devices and free time. Go figure. The effect of that audience was magnifying, but it took me a while to clue in. I only noticed once the advertising on my page became riddled with erectile dysfunction drugs and European river cruises.

I was still learning about vlogging, which was so different than just writing. For example, I couldn’t take breaks to stare off into space while recording a video. I had to put on real clothes—at least above the waist. It had been disturbingly easy to get used to working in my pajamas.

Ash was still writing A Guy’s Guy, but it had morphed along with the merged websites. Now it was more editorial than just advice-based. In addition to freelancing with some high profile magazines, he’d also just finished a book that he was trying to figure out what to do with.

Our apartment had managed to become more minimalistic and modern, despite combining our things, and Dara and I met up at a new craft distillery for drinks and trivia once a week. Oh, and we had a small avocado addiction.

In other words, we were typical Millennials, bordering on hipster. If I weren’t so happy with my life, I’d hate us.

“I still say something looks weird,” I muttered. Ash leaned over my shoulder to look at my laptop.

“Yeah, sorry. Your earlobes…” He shuddered. “They’re kind of droopy.”

I elbowed him in his six-pack but he just strolled away, laughing. Jackass.

“Where’s my protein pow—never mind!” My boyfriend’s gym bag was on the floor beside him in the kitchen as he rummaged through a kitchen cupboard.

Edit. Filter. Undo. Sigh. Fiddling with the video editing software, I reminded him, “Your shaker bottle is in the—”

“Found it, thanks!”

A moment later, he stepped up behind me and bent over to kiss the nape of my neck, below my ponytail.

“Hmmm.” My head tilted to the side. More. Every time he kissed my neck, a tingle went through my body. It was definitely one of my erogenous zones.

To be fair, though, Ash had a remarkable ability to discover new erogenous zones on my body—the biggest one being my brain. Every day he made me laugh and think and play and learn and, well, just be a better me.

He also made better coffee than I did.

“Turn around,” he growled against my neck.

Zing! My skin prickled with instant arousal. He backed up a little as I spun around in my top of the line, ergonomic desk chair. When I looked up at him, I was surprised not to see canary feathers sticking out of his mouth.

So smug.

“What are you grinning about?” I asked him.

“Your droopy earlobes.”

He dropped a kiss on my lips, which were parted just enough to taste him and want for more. So much more. I curled my fingers in his t-shirt and pulled him down to me again.

“Do you really want to go to the gym?” I raised an eyebrow. “I can give you a workout here.”

He hummed against my lips, his mouth curving. “Tempting. But I promised Mike I’d meet him, and the poor bastard will make a fool of himself if he’s not supervised. I think having a toddler has made him regress.”

I couldn’t lie—I was disappointed. But I shrugged it off. “Your loss.”

Ash slowly slid the strap of my tank top off my bare shoulder then gave me a chiding look for free-boobing it. My back arched instinctively and my nipples hardened at his touch. His thumb gently met them, strumming the tender points lightly as they pressed against the ribbed cotton.

My mouth opened in a silent “oh”.

“Yeah, definitely my loss,” he agreed roughly. With a self-sacrificing sigh, he straightened. I crossed my arms over my chest, covering up my headlights. “What are you going to do for the next couple of hours?”

“Masturbate.”

Something dark and dangerous flashed in his eyes. “You better not.”

“Why not? You get me all riled up… then you leave.” Serves you right, I thought. I stood up, brushing my body up against his like a gentle breeze from the open window.

Stepping to the side, I lifted my arms over my head and rolled my head around in an exaggerated stretch. My tank top rose to reveal my stomach—which is exactly where I wanted his eyes to go. I could practically feel his gaze slide over my body, from my breasts to my bare legs under my tiny shorts.

What can I say? It was a hot day, and I worked from home. There were times when I considered actually working naked, but the idea of going commando on my expensive desk chair made me cringe.

“Ugh.” He glanced down at his gym bag on the floor beside my desk, then at me.

The gym bag.

Me again.

Then he pulled his phone out of his pocket, checked the time and groaned as he dropped it on the desk.

“Okay, how quickly can you come?” He snapped his arm around my waist and reeled me in. My hands flew to his chest.

His hands went up my tank top.

Dampness clouded my shorts, but I couldn’t resist teasing him a little. “Oh jeez. I don’t want you to go out of your way or anything.”

He cupped my breasts under the fabric, making me bite back a moan.

“Lizzie, nothing—absolutely nothing—is more important to me than making you scream my name…” He twisted back to look at his phone, which hadn’t gone to sleep yet. “For the next eight minutes.”

Mental math time. I bit the inside of my mouth again as I thought. According to the Ash Principle…

“That means you have about two minutes to make me come—the first tiiiiime!” I told him, shrieking as he bent down and threw me over his shoulder in a fireman carry.

He slapped my ass and stalked to the bedroom, my gaze bouncing around the floor. “I’ll do it in ninety seconds,” he promised, slipping a couple of fingers inside the crotch of my little shorts.

I sucked in a breath as he found my entrance with unerring precision. “Oh!”

“What was that you were saying about getting off, Lizzie?” His fingertip circled me once, twice, then plunged in. “Jesus, you’re so wet.” His observation was followed by the withdrawal of his hand and him dropping me on the bed.

“Clock’s ticking, Garrison,” I said as I wriggled out of my clothes.

My hands stilled and my mouth went dry as he shoved down his gym shorts to wrap a hand around his erection. A flutter and a spasm went through my core, and I wondered if I might be able to come just from the visual alone. Sometimes, I was that turned on and he was that good.

“You’re such a nag,” he complained with a smirk as he pulled the shorts off my feet and spread my legs.

Eight minutes went by very quickly, during which he only managed a two to one orgasm ratio instead of his usual three to one goal.

Still devastating, though.

I lay there afterward, panting and boneless, my heart feeling like it was going to burst out of my chest and bounce off the ceiling. Lazily I watched him pull his shorts back on and reminded him for the eleventh time that day how much I loved him.

In the beginning, loving him was so scary that it almost hurt in my chest—like uncontrolled anxiety. The feeling dissipated with immersion, though. It was like going to a different country and the language starting to click in after a couple of weeks. Soon the sounds became normal, the words, gestures and signs less and less foreign.

Now, I was fluent in loving Ash. I was practically a naturalized citizen.

“I’m late,” he said. “But it was totally worth it.”

“Tell Mike you had to take one for the team.” The pillow was cool on my cheek as I turned onto my side.

He chuckled and leaned over to manacle his hand around my ankle. Squeezed. “I can’t do that. He’s already jealous as fuck that I’m getting laid on a regular basis.”

Right, the trials and tribulations of parenthood. “Work problem, then?”

His grin set off the butterfly wings in my belly again. Stupid charming sex god. Before he left, he turned around. “Oh, that reminds me. You should read the column today.”

I pushed myself up onto my elbows to look at him, but he avoided my gaze. “Yeah?”

“Yeah, I think it’s going to get a big response. At least, I hope it does.”

He didn’t usually preen about his work, but there was an embarrassed kind of pride in his expression. The last time he had that look on his face was when he was nominated for an award for a series he did on sex trafficking. I was so damn proud of him.

Once he left for the gym, I lay on the bed for another ten minutes, trying to cool down and listen to the ambient sounds of summer in the city outside—wondering if we needed a bigger place. Maybe someday, we would…

I picked up my shorts from the floor, still feeling sticky. The big windows in the living room faced west, so the afternoon always got hotter in the apartment. There were some fans, but we didn’t have air conditioning. I still didn’t understand why Ash went to the gym on days like this. If he wanted to sweat, he could have just stayed here with me. The crotch on my shorts was damp, and the idea of putting them back on didn’t appeal much.

Ah, what the hell. I was alone, so I just padded back out to my desk. Um, still didn’t plan to sit naked in my chair, though—especially not after sexy times. I bent over to wake up my laptop and clicked on the bookmark for A Guy’s Guy.

At first I didn’t know what I was looking at, but then when recognition dawned, I didn’t quite process what I was seeing.

Years before, he’d paid for ads all over the site confessing to his most embarrassing moments. But this… this was… oh my god.

On every banner, every side rail and inline ad, even the leaderboard was a litany of moments in our relationship.

My eyes bugged out as I scrolled down. I hadn’t even gotten to the actual column yet; I was so overwhelmed by the barrage of memories.

Uh oh.

The last time Ash had done something like this, he had some major groveling to do. What had he done this time? My heart in my throat, I scrolled down through memory lane to get to the column. He’d gone old school. I blinked as I read it. And re-read it.

I felt faint. Please don’t mean threesome, please don’t mean threesome. Was this what he meant earlier by a big response? My brain was about to explode. I scrolled down further to see Ash’s response.

The words swam before my eyes. Dizziness felled me onto the chair, my momentum rolling the casters beneath.

So much for not branding my fancy chair with my bare coochie.

I fumbled around on the desk for my phone, but when my thumb was on the screen, I hesitated. Deep breath. I had to text Ash.

When are you coming home? -L

Almost as soon as I pressed send, two things happened—a muffled chime sounded out in the hallway, and Ash appeared through the front door.

My mouth fell open as he dropped his gym bag.

He exhaled heavily. “Jesus, how long did you lie in bed? I’ve been hovering outside in the hallway so long, I’m surprised someone hasn’t called the cops on me.”

“Wha—“ Deep breath. I shook my head as he walked toward me. “I don’t… what—” I flung my hand toward the computer. “What does that mean?”

“Which part? All the times I knew I loved you? The goldfish?”

A manic giggle escaped me before I could clap my hand over my mouth. Those poor goldfish. We couldn’t even keep plants alive.

Ash’s eyes darkened like wet slate as he approached me. “I want more.”

My throat tightened. “Define more.”

“Really? Okay.” He pulled something out of his pocket and dropped to his knees in front of me, his gaze sliding up my bare thighs, belly and breasts to my face.

Oh my god. “What did you do?” My voice was shaky.

This couldn’t be what I thought it was, right? If it was, he’d be on one knee, not both; wasn’t that what was supposed to happen? It’s not like it never occurred to me, or that I hadn’t thought about our future. I’d looked at wedding dresses online—what girl hasn’t?

“Lizzie, I love you.”

“I know.”

He chuckled and banged his head playfully against my knee, then looked up at me with wonder and amusement. “Shit, I had this big speech all prepared, and now it’s totally gone. Okay, I love you. I love almost everything about you.” He held up a hand. “I’m not going to lie and say that I love every single part of you because, well, the way you sing in the shower makes my ears bleed. And then, of course, there are the droopy earlobes.”

“Hey!”

“Baby, I’m kidding. About the ears, anyhow. But damn if I don’t want to hear you fake the words to Korean pop songs in the bathroom every morning for the rest of my life.”

He wasn’t a fan of K-pop.

“Ash…”

“Marry me, Lizzie.”

I stared at him, then I looked down at the velvet box he’d opened over my knees. A sparkling diamond ring glistened between my thighs—

With a horrified gasp, I shoved him back onto his heels. “Are you crazy?”

He froze, his eyes wide.

Oh my god!

I bolted up from the chair and ran into the bedroom. “I can’t be naked for this!” I shouted. “What will we tell our children?”

With shaking hands, I pulled my shorts and tank top back on. When I whirled around again, he was standing in front of me—still holding that little box with the freaking North Star in it.

“You’re doing this all wrong,” I told him, thinking back to a proposal advice I’d given in my Miss Behave days.

With an exasperated growl he swept me onto the bed, dropping the ring box on the rumpled bedcovers.

“There is no wrong. There’s only you. Us. That’s what I want.” He loomed over me, straddling my legs. “Look, I’m still on my knees, okay? I’m proposing to you. Give me a break, here. I’ve never done this before!”

“And I have?”

He grimaced. “I sure fucking hope not. I’m it, baby. It’s you and me for the rest of our lives.” His head tilted to the side as he conceded, “Maybe another goldfish. Or more. I can see more.”

So could I, especially with the way he was looking at me right that moment.

“You’re it,” I repeated.

“So now you have clothes on, okay?” He pushed down on the mattress underneath me, making it shake beneath us. “Say yes to me so I can take them off you again!”

I bit my lower lip, trying not to smile. “I’m sorry, what was the question again?” I wasn’t dense; I just wanted to hear the words again.

“Argh! Will you marry me?” He repeated it, drawing the words out slow and loud, like an obnoxious tourist in a foreign country.

“Yes!” I yelled. “Of course I will!”

His shoulders sagged and he laughed. “Oh, for fuck’s sakes,” he breathed out. “Now was that so hard?”

He fell on the bed beside me, panting like he’d actually gone to the gym instead of lurking in the hallway with a crazy proposal plan. It was my turn to straddle him, now. I swiveled up and threw my knee over his hips, situating myself on top of him.

We both hitched in a breath as I ground down on him.

As his hands swept up my body, I felt as though fireworks had been lit inside me. There was tightness in my chest, an ache like I’d been tickled until I was ready to pee my pants. I was buoyant with joy. I felt like a balloon, ready to float up to the ceiling. Only his lips and fingers anchored me to the bed.

I’d said goodbye to Miss Behave a long time ago.

Now it was time to say hello to Miss Us.