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She sighed and pulled me closer.
“Yeah. Now when we go to sleep we can say them. When we wake up, we can say them. When we go to work, we can say them. I can tell you I love you a hundred times a day,” she said.
“That seems a little excessive,” I said. “I don’t need that much validation.”
“Well, that’s a relief,” she said with a laugh. “Although I’d do it, if you needed me to.”
I buried my face in her hair. It was still damp from the shower.
“We should go on another date,” I said. “I can plan, and drive.”
“Okay,” she said. “Our last one was such a success.”
I started plotting what we could do while we held each other that night and into the morning. I did fall into a soft and deep sleep, which I had desperately needed.
* * *
“We really needto get better at getting up,” Natalie said as we rushed around to try and get ready so we weren’t late.
“We’ll work on it,” I said, giving her a kiss as she got out of the car with her coffee and her bag. Since we were back on, I was driving her to work again.
I rolled down the window. “I love you,” I called to her.
“I love you,” she said back, trying to blow me a kiss, her hands too full of stuff to really pull it off.
* * *
I didn’t seeWyatt that day, and I was grateful. I visit my dad’s office at lunch and agree to come over for dinner tomorrow night. I needed to check in with them and I also needed to tell them about Natalie. Chances were they already knew, but I still wanted to tell them. I hoped Wyatt wouldn’t be there, but that was probably too much to ask.
It rained during the afternoon, so I didn’t see Natalie or Preston, but she sent me a video of him singing and my heart melted. She also sent me some ideas for a logo for my shop and social pages. Everything looked so fancy and professional, and I told her so. Guess she’d taken a few marketing classes in college, so all that stuff was in her wheelhouse. Mine, not so much. I could barely maintain my own personal social pages.
I planned to spend a lot of time creating this weekend. Natalie was going to be running around with Gretchen, looking at both wedding and baby shower venues, so I’d be able to concentrate better without distractions.
I sent both Paige and Esme messages that I’d worked things out with Natalie and we were all good. They were very congratulatory, which was nice.
After work, I stopped in at Sweet’s to get some dinner. I wanted to spend as much time with Natalie as possible, and even though I liked cooking with her, I liked having extra naked time with her more.
There was someone I didn’t know behind the counter, but she looked kind of familiar.
“Uh, hi, order for Emerald?” I asked. Her hair was an adorable shade of cotton-candy pink, and she had studs shaped like frosted donuts in her ears.
“Oh!” she said. “You’re Emerald.”
“Yes?” I said. Had I met this person before?
“I’m Charlie. Linley’s cousin?” she said.
“Oh!” I said. “You’re the cousin.”
She smiled and handed my order over the counter in a paper bag.
“Yup, that’s me. You’re all set. It’s on the house,” she said.
I realized that she and Linley had the exact same shade of brown eyes, and their chins were carbon copies.
I’d tried to fight getting free food before and it was a losing battle at Sweet’s. So I just pulled some cash out of my wallet and shoved it in the tip jar.
“I’ll pretend I didn’t see that,” she said with a laugh.
