AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I dropped my plate down onto the blanket and dragged my purse closer to me. I dug through my bag, pulled out my phone, and unlocked it. Finn watched me curiously as he continued to munch away on his taco.
I clicked on the camera icon and held up my phone. He didn’t protest as I snapped a couple photos of him. He just kept on eating as if my behavior was completely normal to him.
I didn’t care if it was normal or not. I needed to make new memories, and I wanted photographs of them. I hadn’t realized how important those kinds of things were until everything from before had been lost to me.
I had a picture from our first date, and now I would have photographic evidence from our second one. Later, I could print them out and get frames for them. My bedroom could use some personality.
I sat my phone down on my bag and picked up my taco. I bit into it and moaned loudly as the flavors exploded on my tongue. Finn could make food for me any day, and I would eat it if it tasted this good. There was the tiniest hint of lime that clung to the chicken that really made the taco perfect.
Rain couldn’t cook for shit. He tried, I had to give him that, but he burned almost everything he attempted to make. He knew how to grill things though, and he was really good at that.
Thank goodness I wasn’t a vegetarian, or I’d probably starve living with him, because I wasn’t a very good cook either. It was one of those things I’d always wanted to learn and had wrongfully assumed there’d be plenty of time for my mother to teach me later on in life.
If this worked out with Finn, then perhaps I could convince him to teach me, and maybe he could teach Rain too because lord knew he needed it. If Romero couldn’t cook, then perhaps Finn would be able to train him as well.
Yeah, the more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea a whole lot.
He watched me with pure male satisfaction as I ate my entire taco, drank my mini bottle of wine, and made myself another taco. I ate three tacos while he watched me with rapt attention, and oddly enough, I didn’t feel uncomfortable in the slightest.
“You got room for brownies after all of that?” He grinned at me as he gestured toward my empty plate. “I don’t know where you put all of that, but damn girl, you can eat. It’s fucking impressive to watch you enjoy my food. Best damn thing I’ve seen in a long time. Honestly, it made my—”
He snapped his mouth shut and quickly looked away from me. Hmm… Now who was curious? That would be me, and you bet your sweet ass I wanted to know what he’d been about to say. He’d never been particularly shy before, so I didn’t understand why he’d start now.
I let him have his moment, though, because he never called me out for being weird.
“Is that even a real question? Of course I want brownies. You never have to ask me that. If it involves some form of chocolate, then I am in.” I rubbed my belly in a gentle soothing circle. Okay, so maybe I might end up puking, but I was definitely willing to go for it.
The brownies were delicious, and I only managed to put down two of them. Finn only ate half of one, which was a damn shame. Perhaps he didn’t have a sweet tooth like I did. How absurd.
I thought we’d be leaving when Finn packed everything away into the cooler and the picnic basket. It had gotten dark out here while we’d been eating, and I should have brought a sweater with me, because it was now slightly chilly out.
Finn surprised me when he sat everything aside on the edge of the blanket once it was all packed up. He pulled a glass jar out of the cooler and stood up with it in his hands.
“You stay right where you are.” He pointed at me sitting on the blanket.
Since he was walking toward the water, he didn’t have to worry about me chasing after him, because no thanks.
I’d felt the magic humming inside of the jar the moment he pulled it out of the cooler. I couldn’t tell what it did, but it was powerful, whatever it was.
Finn knelt down on the riverbank and roughly shook up the jar. So many tiny little sparks of light flashed to life inside the jar in several different brilliant colors.
Finn shot me a devil-may-care grin as he unscrewed the lid and slowly backed away from the riverbank. Smoke billowed out from the jar in a heavy cloud that slithered straight up toward the sky.
Finn popped down on the blanket beside me. He wrapped his arm around my shoulders and pulled me into his side. I sank into his warmth as I laid my head on his shoulder and wrapped my arm around his middle.
He kissed the top of my head as he ran the palm of his hand up and down my arm. At the touch of his bare skin on mine, I shivered, and my nipples tightened painfully. I hoped like hell he didn’t notice, but I was learning there wasn’t much about me that Finn didn’t notice.
The jar started shaking and rattling around as the lights exploded out of it and shot into the sky in a burst of pink, blue, yellow, orange, and so many other bright colors.
They burst to life high in the sky in one riot of fireworks after the next.
“Finn,” I breathed out in awe at the beautiful sight going on in the sky above us. “This is… incredible.”
It was more than incredible actually, it was freaking insanely sweet that he would put this together for me. It made our date so memorable that there was no need for me to have taken a photograph of him for my memories. There was no way in hell I’d ever be able to forget this magical night.
His thoughtfulness brought tears to my eyes. Even when my family was alive and I lived with them, no one had ever done something so sweet and special for me.
Finn scooped me up and dropped me down into his lap. He wrapped his arms around my middle and rested his chin on my shoulder. I kicked my legs out in front of me, and he spread his legs, making room for my legs to fit between his thighs.
