She kept her eyes on their hands, hoping he wasn’t saying her name because he knew her shame.
She had promised a lifetime of love to her husband. And here she was, just a few years after losing him, hurtling down the slippery slope of the same crush that had tormented her through college.
“Okay, let’s do favorite colors, songs, movies, all that,” she said brightly, pulling her hand back. “That’s the kind of thing that could trip us up.”
“Your favorite color is green,” Erik said, shrugging.
It wasn’t always. Not until the first time I looked into your eyes.
“Your favorite song,” he continued, “is ‘Don’t Worry Baby’ and your favorite movie isWhile You Were Sleeping.”
“Oh,” she said, surprised he remembered any of that.
“And I think it’s easiest if we tell everyone that we met like we actually did, while we were in college together in Boston,” he offered. “Then we don’t have to remember as much.”
“Agreed,” she said.
“And if anyone asks again, you moved to Seattle last year for work,” he added.
“Good call,” she admitted with a smile. “We can’t have them thinking you might be marrying a Patriots fan, after all.”
“So, tell me about our first date,” he said, his voicelowering again. “What convinced you that I was worth keeping around?”
“Well, you planned it,” she said. “Why don’t you tell me about it?”
“I picked you up in the afternoon,” he said immediately. “With a bouquet of pink peonies.”
“Another favorite,” she said, impressed.
“We went to the Boston Public Garden,” he told her. “And we walked through the flowers and down to the pond.”
She could picture it perfectly. She had been to the Boston Public Garden many times. It was one of the most romantic places in the world, in her opinion. But she never imagined that Erik knew anything about it.
“I took you out on a paddle boat,” he told her. “And we laughed about the past and dreamed about the future. Afterward, we had breakfast for dinner at the place around the corner. But before we even got there, I already knew that I was going to have to convince you to marry me.”
“Why?” she asked without thinking.
“Because I just can’t live without you,” Erik said gruffly.
His eyes were locked on hers and his tone was so serious. Jenny knew they were supposed to be pretending. He had just made up a first date for them that never actually happened. But her heart was pounding.
“Special delivery,” Trudy said softly from the entry to the library.
Jenny turned to see that Trudy was back with a kettle.
“I wondered if anyone might like more hot chocolate,” Trudy said with a smile.
“Oh, um, no thank you,” Jenny said quickly. “I should probably get back upstairs.”
“Don’t do that,” Erik said. “Life is short, drink the chocolate.”
Jenny laughed and nodded to Trudy, watching as she poured out more for each of them and then heading back out of the room.
“So, pretend dates aside, how have you really been since college?” Erik asked lightly, leaning back in his chair.
And just like that, things were back to normal, or as normal as they could be with the two of them sharing a meal by the fire.
Jenny caught him up on everything—being a teacher and her new work teaching online, the joy of finding Jason and sharing a life with him, as well as the sadness of losing him. She even told him about all the things she had done to qualify to be a foster parent and what it was like getting to know Gael as she prayed to be allowed to adopt him.
