“No,” I protest. “Unhand me, you beast.”
“You brought the beast with you, little girl.” He covers my mouth and presses me against the wall.
We’re both panting hard.
And then my tummy grumbles.
He bows his head and gently bites where my shoulder meets my neck. “What kind of Daddy would I be if I didn’t feed you?”
“A good one, if you make me squirm on your fingers…”
He picks me up and carries me back to the living room of the suite. “How do we order room service here?”
I roll my eyes. “On the phone, like every other hotel.”
“Is there a special bat signal phone?”
There probably is but I still stick out my tongue.
“Order us some dinner,” he growls. “And then I’ll make you squirm.”
* * *
The last leg of our road trip brings with it a small tremor of trepidation that I can’t shake. Every mile that we get closer to San Diego makes what we are doing feel that much more real.
We even joke about it.
“Getting cold feet?” Justin asks as we approach the San Diego city limits.
But it’s not nerves that I’m feeling it. It’s just an uncertainty. Everything about my life until this week has been very certain. Too certain, locked down without any adventure, and this feels like a wonderful adventure.
“More of an uncertain wonder? I don’t know what’s going to happen this afternoon. I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow.”
He takes my hand and kisses my knuckles. “Tomorrow we’re going to get married, one way or another, even if it’s just at City Hall.”
“If we’re doing it together, it won’t bejustanything. It will be special. It will be ours.”
His fingers tighten around mine. “Let’s hang on to this feeling, because we might need it.”
He’s not just talking about the next couple of days. If I’m going to be his wife, and he is going to be my husband—against all odds—we are going to have to hold on to this feeling for the rest of our lives.
* * *
Driving over the bridge from San Diego to Coronado feels like coming home.
I never thought of the town within a city on the other side of San Diego Bay ashomewhen I was a little girl. It was a place where we lived for a couple of years between Hawaii and Washington. But I’m now assaulted by familiar sights and nostalgic memories. The bookstore on Orange Ave where my mother would take me to find something new to read. The hotel where we would have brunch on the weekends. I can just see the red roof of it when we turn away, heading north.
I must have made a sound, because Justin slows his truck down and pulls into a parking spot. “What is it?”
“It’s nothing.”
“From the look on your face, it’s notnothing.”
I unbuckle my seat belt and launch myself over the console between us, kissing his face with an unexpected exuberance.
Laughing, he cups the back of my neck with his hand and kisses me back, tasting my excitement.
“This is just bringing up a lot of happy memories for me. I saw the hotel and—”