Chapter Twenty-Four
In a few minutes, Blaine would leave for Georgeville, as he had every Saturday for the past month. He’d woken up before eight and had been tempted to leave right away, but he’d told Cassie he would be there around noon.
He walked over to his bookshelf. In front of a row of novels, author names A through F, there was a photo of him and Cassie that he’d taken last weekend. Beside it was the old picture of him and his father in front of the Royal Tyrrell Museum.
I wish you could meet her. It seemed horribly wrong that his father would never get to know the woman who’d captured his heart.
Life was strange, and it didn’t always make sense, but somehow his had led him to Cassie, and for that, he was thankful.
He moved to the next shelf and picked up an ammonite. The one she’d sketched for him. He was just putting it back when there was a knock at the door.
He couldn’t help but remember the time Cassie’s mom had interrupted them while a tiny dog barked at their feet. That made him smile, even though someone was knocking on his door at nine thirty in the morning, and they were probably going to try to sell him window cleaning or a new roof.
He swung open the door, prepared to get the interruption over with as fast as possible.
But it wasn’t a salesman.
“Cassie,” he said, half in shock.
She was here. At his door.
And she was carrying a very large purse.
“Clean clothes for tomorrow,” she explained. “I don’t plan to spend a weekend in a beaver costume ever again.”
“Cassidy. You…”
“I came to you this time. For the rest of the weekend. ” She shut the door behind her and wrapped her arms around his neck. “I love you.”
Holy crap. Had he heard her right?
He was pretty sure he had. So he pulled her close and held her as tightly as he could.
Somewhere in his brain, there existed these things called words. Now would be a good time to string a few of them together. But he couldn’t do anything but kiss her for a long, long time, their lips melding together perfectly.
“I love you, too,” he finally managed to respond.
“I can’t think of anyone but you. I sure as hell haven’t been able to date anyone else in the past month. And I trust you. We can have those days when we do nothing but stay in bed and have sex, and those are great. But we have so much more than that, too. You were right, Blaine.”
“Mm,” he said. “I like hearing those words. I’m glad I won the bet after all.”
She gave him a playful shove. “I can’t walk away from you now. You proved to me that our relationship isn’t just about mindblowing sex, but the fact that the sex is so good with you…I do think that means something. So…I’ll be your girlfriend. There’s nothing I want more than you in my life.”
She started kissing her way up his neck, and when she reached his mouth, they shared a deep kiss that felt like a promise.
“The time we spent together,” he said, “both this year and last year—I always felt like I could be my weird, nerdy self with you. That you liked those parts of me. And the things we explored in bed together—I couldn’t do that with any other woman. For me, you’re unlike anyone else, and I want us to last forever.” He paused. “I bought you something. Let me get it.”
He ran upstairs to his bedroom feeling weightless with joy and took the promise ring out of his night table.
Cassie Monroe loved him.
She’d finally agreed to be with him, only him, so it felt like exactly the right time to do this.
He came back to the living room and held out the ring in the palm of his hand. “It’s a promise ring,” he said. “May I?”
She nodded, her eyes sparkling.
He turned her hand over in his, touching her soft skin, and slid the ring onto her finger. “If it makes you uncomfortable, you don’t have to wear it.”
“Of course I want to wear it. But I don’t need this to know you’re devoted to me—”
He smiled wide. “Devoted. That’s exactly what I am.”
“Still, I love it, and I love the idea of always wearing something you gave me.”
He took both of her hands in his. “Someday, we will have the dress and the picket fence, the two-and-a-half kids and a dog, too. But for now, it’s just the two of us. And that’s everything I want.”
He wasn’t going to lose Cassie. She was his.
And it filled him with joy.
…
Now that Cassie was with Blaine, really with him, she didn’t feel like she was risking her heart at all.
She looked at the ring, and then she looked into his eyes. And like the first time she’d caught sight of him at Tim Hortons more than a year ago, it nearly knocked her off her feet, that special connection that arced between them.
But he wasn’t a stranger anymore. She knew him, and she trusted him. They’d spent a whole weekend together a month ago, and they would spend this weekend together, too.
This time, she wouldn’t try to prove it was sex and nothing else. This time, she wouldn’t fantasize about breaking his heart the way he’d broken hers. This time, she wouldn’t fear that she was falling in love with him all over again.
Because she was in love with him. And there was nothing to be afraid of.
She rubbed her ring finger over his cheek, the metal pressing against his skin. “Just the two of us? Sounds good to me. I wonder what sort of trouble we could get up to…?”
She was about to drop to her knees when something on the kitchen island caught her eye. It was a large plastic container with a chocolate cake inside.
“Wow. Did you bake for me?”
“Sort of. I wasn’t going to bring it to you today, but—”
“No?” She went to the kitchen and pulled the lid off the container. “There’s three-quarters of a homemade chocolate cake in here, and you’re saying you never intended to give me any of it?”
He looked semi-guilty. “I didn’t bring you the chocolate cakes I made the last three weeks, either.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Cakes? How many?”
“Um…this makes five.”
Okay, that was truly shocking.
Although the idea of him baking was kind of hot.
Very hot.
“Blaine, we need to talk about your duties and responsibilities as my official boyfriend. If you bake chocolate cake, I get some. Or any other flavor of cake. Or pie. Or cookies.”
“Okay. Got it.”
But she still didn’t understand. “Are you just making chocolate cakes and eating them by yourself?”
“Well, yes. I’ve been trying to find the perfect flourless chocolate cake recipe for you, but my research isn’t complete yet. This one’s the best so far, but it’s still not quite right. The butter-to-chocolate ratio, perhaps? I have high hopes for number six, though.”
She started laughing. Oh man. This guy. Life would always be interesting with him, no matter where they were. She didn’t know where life would take them—perhaps she would move to Ottawa in the next few months?—but the important thing was that they were together.
Cassie cut herself a thin slice of cake.
“Wow,” she said after she tasted it. “This is incredible.”
“But not quite as incredible as the cake we had at the restaurant, which was my goal. Your response to that cake was a little more…orgasmic.”
“Was it?”
“Mm-hmm. Fortunately, I have lots of non-chocolate cake ideas that are guaranteed to get the same response out of you.”
“Do you, now?”
“I do. I think you’ll like them very much.”
And with that, he swept her off her feet and carried her to bed.
They didn’t eat any more cake for a very long time.
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