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“Be my business partner.”
She pulled back a bit, his words sounding foreign, as if her brain couldn’t understand what they meant.
“I don’t want you to just be my consultant— be my co-owner. Run With a Cherry on Top with me.”
She stood up so quickly that her chair fell backward and leaned at an angle against her couch. As she walked the two steps into her small kitchen, she ran her fingers through her hair, her back to Marcus. After a deep breath, she turned to face him. He still sat at the table, leaning forward, hope and uncertainty warring on his face.
“Are you serious?”
He stood up. “I’ve seen how happy creating this business has made you. I knew you always wanted your own business, but I hadn’t realized how much joy it’d bring you until we started working on it together. I can’t think of a better business partner to have than someone as passionate as you are.” He took a step toward her. “Think of how much better this business will be if you’re running it with me than if I’m running it by myself.”
“But Everett”—
“Everett isn’t the boss of us.”
She laughed out loud, his statement somehow making her current state of shock simmer down to one of curious surprise. “As I was fond of telling him my entire childhood.”
“Let me ask you this,” he said. “With my ice cream and your business sense, do you think this business would fail?”
“Not a chance.” The words came out immediately and with conviction.
“If we consulted each other on everything, and you deferred to me on the product,” he said, motioning to her bowl of ice cream, “and I deferred to you on business decisions, do you think we would have any major issues?”
She thought through it before answering and then shook her head.
“Everett, Kennon, the entire Zimmerman clan— they’re only worried if things have a high potential of not working out. And I don’t think they do. Agreed?”
A smile spread across her face as she imagined how it would feel to run With a Cherry on Top alongside Marcus. Then everything wouldn’t be coming to an end in five short weeks. All the tabs and tabs of potential businesses in the spreadsheet in her head could be replaced by this one business that excited her more than all the others combined.
The magical feeling she had been experiencing since Marcus first asked for her help would be able to continue indefinitely. That shop at the top of Main Street would be housing her business after all. And best of all, she would get to run it alongside Marcus. She already worried how much she would miss seeing him practically every day once she no longer had a reason to.
It had hit her during her dinner date with Alex that maybe things hadn’t ever worked out with any other guy because that guy wasn’t Marcus. And now it hit her that maybe the reason why she’d never started her own business was because it wasn’t him then, either. Maybe this business had felt so right all along and had brought her so much joy because it was Marcus.
“I think that the two of us working together on With a Cherry on Top would give it a high chance of succeeding.”
“So you’ll be my business partner?” He took another step toward her, his expression open and hopeful, excitement bubbling just beneath the surface.
She was feeling those same emotions welling up in her right alongside a feeling of how exactly, perfectly right it all felt. “I will.”
“Yes!” he shouted, and wrapped his big, muscled arms around her, picking her up off the ground and holding her close, turning around in circles in her small space.
She laughed in happiness, not sure how much was coming from herself and how much came from the happiness rolling off in waves from the man holding her.
He set her gently back on the ground and instead of stepping back as a business partner should, she stayed right where she was, pressed up against Marcus, their faces a breath apart. So many times over the past several weeks, she would catch herself imagining moments just like this, with her in Marcus’s arms. Each time, she’d quickly direct her thoughts away from the hope of this impossibility.
But if being business partners felt so right and like everything would work out, wouldn’t the same be true for dating him?
As she looked into his eyes, wondering if he felt the same way, she saw a need, a longing, a yearning that matched her own. Still holding her close with one arm, Marcus reached a hand up and placed two knuckles under her jaw, his thumb gently brushing her chin. The motion at once took her back to those blissful days as a teenager when they snuck away from everyone to bask in each other’s presence. But at the same time, this was different. It was something so much stronger, forged from a decade of friendship, that pulled them together now.
She rose on her toes, hesitating a moment as she looked into his eyes, barely breathing, her mind swirling, and then she pressed her lips against his. His lips pressed against hers so softly, so sweetly, a feeling of respect and devotion enveloped her, making her feel cherished in a way she hadn’t experienced before. A warmth burned in her chest at the realization of how much she had cared for this man over so many years without her being willing to recognize or admit it. The way his lips carefully, gently pressed against hers told her that the same was true for him.
The power of that realization burned so strongly that she moved her hands from his chest to his shoulders, her fingers resting on those strong muscles, and he responded by moving his hand from her jaw to the back of her neck, tangling his fingers into her hair. The heat of the kiss burned into her as he slanted his lips against hers, and her hands moved to the back of his neck and into his hair, holding him close, not wanting to ever let go.
When they finally parted, she looked up at him, dazed, her breaths coming quickly, drinking in that strong jaw, that open, friendly face, those welcoming eyes. He was looking at her in a way that she wanted to bottle and keep forever.
Marcus chuckled as he reached out and brushed two fingertips along her temple. “Most people shake hands when they become business partners, but I’ll take this any day.”
Joselyn laughed and placed one more quick kiss on his lips as if it was sealing the deal.
