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I grinned. “No such thing as lame. Go ahead, baby. Wow me.”
“You ready for this, baby?” Mia cleared her throat and stood up. “This isn’t a love story you hear every day. The day I met Oliver Bishop wasn’t conventional. He came to my family’s home to ask for my hand in marriage — only it wasn’t for him. It was for his uncle, and although I was very attracted to him, he was all business and wouldn’t give me the time of day. Yet, I could see how he looked at me, the bittersweet look in his eyes when my father agreed to his uncle’s offer. He wanted me to go with him, but he didn’t want me for his uncle, regardless of what his stubborn mouth said. As fate would have it, we drank a love potion on our journey to his uncle’s home and fell helplessly in love. Now he’s stuck with me forever and when I die, I’m going to haunt him.”
My jaw went slack as I stared at her. “That’s ... did you steal the plot from Tristan & Isolde?” I accused, trying so damn hard not to smile. I wasn’t succeeding. “Is that what this is? You cheated?”
“No.” Guilt overtook her face. “How could I cheat if I haven’t seen the movie?”
I covered my mouth with my hand as I gasped. “You didn’t. Mia Camilla Perez, tell me you didn’t Google spoilers like a monster.”
She couldn’t even look me in the eyes. “It was almost an accident. I wanted to check out the soundtrack and it was just there. I couldn’t help it, once I read one line I couldn’t stop. It sounds like a good movie.”
“That’s because it is a good movie,” I said defensively. “It’s also better when you watch it than when you read it, but fine. I know what we’re doing tonight.”
I stood, tearing the page with my story on it and folding it quickly to stash in my pocket, then swiped the remote off the coffee table like an overdramatic child. I was nervous and a little embarrassed — she’d gone the humorous route which I loved, but I’d gone a lot more serious. If she wasn’t ready for serious, I might’ve fucked up.
“No, no. Wait. Let me see, Ollie. Please. I’m sorry I looked up spoilers.” Mia made her way to me and pulled me in. “I want to read yours.”
I softened and tugged her hair back to kiss her nose. “It’s in my back pocket, baby. Take it.”
She reached in there to squeeze my ass, then slipped it out and spun around to open it. I read it over her shoulder, nervous the second it got to her description at the diner, but she was spinning back to face me before I got to the end of the sentence. “Ollie. This is our story. I thought ...” Confusion swept over her beautiful face as she put the pieces together. “Love?”
Her voice was small, scared, everything I’d hoped it wouldn’t be.
I tried my best to keep my expression light and hopeful even though I swore I could feel my heart in a vice. “I don’t know about you, Mia, but yeah. That right there is the bona fide tale of how I fell in love with you.”
“You love me?” Her eyes watered, mouth slowly turning into a smile as she truly processed it.
“Haven’t I slipped and said it yet?” I asked, a little shocked. “Damn. I thought for sure I’d have mumbled it in my sleep or something. But yes, Mia. I love you.” I cupped her face with both of my hands. “I’m madly, ridiculously, inexplicably in love with you, and your son, and your nephews and your sister and your tiny house that smells like home and the way you always keep me on the hook. Marry me, date me, fuck-marry-kill me, I don’t care. Just let me love you, damnit.”
I kissed her fully, not stopping when I felt her tears hit my cheeks and her little body leap into mine. “I love you too, Papí.”
It probably would’ve been a lot cooler of me to handle that in stride and not like a little girl, but that wasn’t what happened at all. I believed her, with every stupid, broken part of me, with that open wound where my heart was supposed to be. I believed her ... and then I got clingy as hell.
“Not going anywhere,” I mumbled, pulling her down on the couch with me and holding her so damn tightly she squirmed. “Sorry, you live here now.”
Mia laughed, clinging to me just as much as I clung to her. “Baby, I love you. But let’s talk more about that later, okay?”
She touched my chin softly and kissed my lips, making me realize she didn’t outright say no.
“So what you’re telling me is that now instead of asking you to go on a date, I have to swap it out for cohabitation? Got it.” I smiled cheekily and grabbed the remote from where I’d dropped it on the couch. “In the meantime, what do you say we find that movie and we watch your gloomy, traumatic rendition of our love story?”
She smiled sheepishly. “Okay, but I’m throwing mine away. Yours will be framed for our living room.”
“Oh, no. It’s going in our scrapbook.” I held a finger to her lips when she opened her mouth. “No, I don’t have one yet. But I’m sure as hell gonna now, and every weird, morbid thing you do is going in there. I’ll be making copies and hiding them all over the place so you can’t destroy them all.”
Mia laughed like I was joking, then started tickling and teasing me. “Oh, yeah? So there won’t be any sex stuff, huh?”
I couldn’t answer at all until she stopped, and by then, I was breathless and completely at her mercy. “Who said that? I said I was gonna hide them, not put them out in the open for everyone to see.”
Mia cuddled up to me and laid on my chest, and even though I couldn’t see her face, I knew she was still smiling. “Oliver Bishop, what are you doing to me?”
“Hopefully making you half as crazy about me as I am about you. I’m pretty sure you’re the Empire’s last hope, baby. Not sure if I’d be able to bounce back if you broke my heart, too.”
I kissed her again to stop her from answering. I didn’t want promises or platitudes, I just wanted her ... for however long she let me.
