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“And then you made it there, like, every day after that.” She swats my chest, and I catch her wrist, holding her to me.
I smile as I remember the first few days after she got ungrounded. We couldn’t keep our hands off each other. “Not long after that, I hit a home run.”
“Right over there on that exact same blanket. Only I don’t remember a picnic basket.”
“That’s because there wasn’t one. I’m older now, you see, and a lot wiser. I know how to wine and dine a girl before I get up to bat.”
“Oh yeah?”
Our fingers entwined, I walk Mo to the blanket. She sits down and crosses her legs while I pull out a bottle of wine and two Solo cups. I pour us each a glass and have her hold mine while I reach in for my other surprise.
“Whatcha got there?” she asks, trying to peer inside the basket.
“I knew the second my mom made apple pie that you wouldn’t eat it. You’ve never been a pie lover. You always said if you were going to inhale calories, it had better be something better than pie.”
“You remember that?” she asks, her eyes going soft.
“I remember everything, Mo.” I pull a small, pink container out of the basket.
“Is that from Sweetie Pies?”
I open the box, and Mo nearly swallows her tongue at the sight in front of her.
“It is. Apparently they removed their double chocolate fudge brownie from the menu a few years back—replaced it with a different brownie—but once I explained why I needed it, Sweetie insisted on making one.”
Carefully, Mo sets both glasses of wine down in the grass and reaches for the brownie. She closes her eyes and gives a soft little moan as she takes a bite.
“There are no words for how amazing this is.”
She holds the brownie up for me to taste, and we go back and forth like this until the entire thing is gone.
“I think we just ate our weight in brownie.” She picks up her wine and takes a hefty sip. “But it was so worth it.”
Seeing the look of contentment and pure happiness on her face—over a brownie no less—was worth the money I had to pay the bakery to dig up their old recipe and make the damn thing.
“It was.” I finish off my wine, tossing my glass next to hers before I scoot back on the blanket and pull her between my legs.
I lean back on my hands, her back to my front, enjoying the way she settles against me as though it’s her favorite place in the world to be.
The sun has begun its decent, casting a warm glow across the pond.
“Do you really remember the first time we…” her words trail off.
“The first time we what?”
“You know…had sex.”
“Made love.” I turn her face toward mine. “We may have been young—and in the beginning, we had no clue what we were doing—but make no mistake about it; every time I was inside of you, it was pure love.”
“We were right here, on this blanket with the sun setting, when we made love for the first time,” she says, turning in my arms.
It’s a memory I’ve pulled up several times over the years. “You crawled into my lap and told me you couldn’t wait another second, that you needed me more than you needed your next breath.”
“When we were done you…” She pauses, crawling out of my lap and over to the tree. It takes a few seconds for her to find what she’s looking for. “There it is,” she whispers, brushing her fingers over the carved bark. “When we were done, you carved our initials into the tree.”
I can hardly breathe in the intensity of this moment. I wish things were still that simple, that I could hold her and tell her nothing has changed, that I still love her. I want that to be possible, but it feels like a lifetime ago. Still, I’m happy to be with her now.
Several seconds of weighted silence pass, and when she stands up, my stomach sinks. I knew we wouldn’t be able to stay out here long, but I’d hoped to at least get through the sunset. Stacking the cups, I toss them in the basket, and when I look up to see what Mo is doing, all of the air disappears from my lungs.
