“Okay.” I laughed, hinting, “Anything else?”
“Um…” She paused and turned over onto her back, her eyes meeting mine. “Awesome gift giver.”
I tilted my head to the side. The conversation had certainly taken a turn I wasn’t expecting, but this was important, nonetheless. We were a newly married couple, hopefully poised at the brink of the rest of our lives. The time to get my husband game plan strategized and filed was now. The stakes were too high not to.
“You know,” she continued. “You have to give me really awesome, exciting presents for things like my birthday and our anniversary and Christmas.”
I nodded. She wanted to be romanced, not taken for granted. I could handle that. “What about Valentine’s Day? Does that gift need to be even more special?”
“No way.” She scrunched up her nose and shook her head, spinning her shoulders completely out from under my hands, and then declared, “Valentine’s doesn’t exist. It is a black-hole holiday, and I will not fall down into its trap. No gifts, no nothing. Just pretend it doesn’t exist.”
“What?” I questioned, surprise in my voice. “Why would we skip Valentine’s Day? You’re supposed to hate it when you’re single, not when you’re married. You’ve got a date locked in for life.”
She shook her head vehemently. “It’s not about that. Not for me, anyway. February 14th brings me nothing but bad luck,” she answered. “I mean, look at what happened onourfirst Valentine’s Day together, Kline.”
Visions of flames and fire extinguishers and the New York City Fire Department flashed through my mind. Sure, there’d been a failure in candle safety, but I’d put out the flames well before my apartment building burned. In fact, I’d had it completely under control before our neighbors even dialed the fire department. And now that the contractors had fixed the damage, you couldn’t even tell anything had happened. “That was a fluke, baby. Not a premonition. The rest of our Valentine’s Days are destined to be beautiful memories.”
Eyes pinched with skepticism, Georgia rearranged herself on the beach towel to fully face me and started counting off bullet points—proof of reasoning, as it were—with her fingers.
“A fluke? Really?” She shook her head. “Let’s take quick stock of Georgia Cummings’s Valentine’s past. They’re messy. And cruel. And twisted. I’m surprised they haven’t cast Brittany Snow in a movie to play the role of my ghost, like a Valentine’s version of Scrooge.” Georgie flipped her hair over her shoulder, licked her lips, and continued. “When I was eight, my parents set their bedroom on fire, and Will and I ended up standing out on the front lawn at eleven o’clock at night while firemen had to put it out. I should mention that ole Dick Cummings was wearing Speedo-style red silk underwear with the words ‘Mr. Handsome’ written across his ass.”
“Oh fuck,” I said, and a laugh jumped from my throat. “So, your history with fire departments isn’t the best. That could still be a coincidence.”
“Dick had on a Speedo, Kline,” Georgia emphasized, making me laugh.
“Yes, but that’s really not that out of the ordinary, is it? It could happen any day of the week with your parents, not just on Valentine’s Day. And as a bonus, you don’t live at home anymore. That scenario is very unlikely to repeat.”
Georgia snorted. “Don’t hold your breath. I wouldn’t put it past Dick to show up in a banana hammock on our next momentous occasion, just for the hell of it.”
I smiled. “I really do love your parents.”
She rolled her eyes. “That’s because you grew up with Bob and Maureen. You have no idea the lasting impact these kinds of things have on a young adult.”
“You’re right, baby. I have no idea what it feels like in the depths of your pain. But none of these things means that Valentine’s Day from here until the end of time is going to be a shitshow for us. We can change its course.”
“Oh, Kline. You’re so sweet and hopeful—and so dang foolish.”
“Georgie—”
“You want to know what else has happened to me on February 14th?” she challenged smarmily before pushing on to answer without waiting for a response from me. “Horrible breakups, dinner dates that ended up with my boyfriend-at-the-time choking on a Rally’s hot dog and needing the Heimlich, Grandma Cummings getting arrested for illegally selling roses outside a strip club, and much, much more. The list is endless, Kline—from the time I was born to now, it’s been a disaster.”
“Good God, baby,” I responded and ran a hand through my hair as I tried to wrap my head around everything she just divulged. “Fuck, I don’t even know where to begin with all of that.”
“That’s not even close toeverything because I have thirty-plus years of horrible Valentine’s Day catastrophes. And Valentine’s with the perfect man you thought you had zero freaking chance of meeting and falling in love with shouldn’t be a disaster. So, from here on out, I’m not even going to give it a chance. Honestly, we probably need to take steps to ensure our safety. Take off work, spend the whole day in bed. Avoid candles, roses, takeout meals,other people. Literally just try to sleep through the entire day.”
“Baby, that sounds ridiculous.”
“Yeah, well, you’ve never had to spend the majority of your middle school years hearing your friends talk about how you didn’t need a Valentine’s date because your mom was pro-masturbation.”
“Holy hell.” I laughed, but also, I nodded. I knew my Georgie had been through the wringer growing up with Dick and Savannah as her parents, no matter how much I loved their openness about sexuality as an adult.
“So, unless Hallmark decides to change the official day of love, we’ll be spending the rest of our February 14ths in a bunker.”
On another laugh, I reached out and pulled Georgia into my arms and gently repositioned our bodies so that I lay on my back and her chest was pressed against mine. “Okay, baby, from here on out, every February 14th, we’ll be vigilant and prepared. Zombie Apocalypse Doomsday preppers will have nothing on us.”
“Perfect.” She breathed with a relief so acute, I had to lean forward and press my lips to hers, hard and swift.
Heat and excitement stirred in my blood, and by the dramatic new bloom of rose-colored flesh on Georgia’s chest, she felt the same.