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twelve
MARCUS
Marcus smiled at Joselyn as they came to a stop at the end of the freeway off-ramp leading into Nestled Hollow, and she gave him a brilliant smile back. Today was his day off, and Joselyn had managed to take the afternoon off, too. The building was officially theirs as of a couple of hours ago, and they were meeting Nate Elsmore at the shop to talk about the construction before heading back to Denver to meet their designer. After Joselyn agreed to be his business partner and they got everything submitted Monday night, he had given his work notice that he would be leaving at the end of the month.
In the two and a half days since he and Joselyn had kissed, they had made time to get together to work on the business even though he had shifts at the restaurant both Tuesday night and Wednesday night. It had only left them a sliver of time between eleven and midnight, and most of that time had been spent kissing instead of working.
He pulled into a parking space right in front of their building. He and Joselyn didn’t get out of his car right away—they just looked at the place that would house their new business. All of the Larry’s Hardware signs had been removed and the window displays were empty for the first time Marcus had ever seen. Normally, a place like this would’ve had an abandoned feel to him, but sitting next to his business partner and the woman he had been in love with for as long as he could remember, all he could see were possibilities.
“Let’s go check out our building,” he said, feeling like he was twelve again and standing at the gates of Water World with his two cousins and his grandma and grandpa, about to go inside and experience the magic he’d spent months anticipating.
He wanted to grab hold of Joselyn’s hand as they stepped over the melting mounds of snow that probably wouldn’t fully melt for another few weeks, but they hadn’t shared news of their relationship with the Zimmermans, and they couldn’t be seen in town holding hands until they did. So he just opened the front door for her and let her walk in first, and he followed closely behind.
The building felt strangely different without all the shelving that Larry had used in his store. Nate and his crew were already inside, working to tear up the old laminate flooring that had seen decades of use. Everything was bare to the walls. Every scrape of the tools as they went under the flooring, thereeeekand then crack each chunk of laminate made as it was removed, every footstep and each word exchanged, all bounced around in the empty space, echoing and making it feel even larger.
“Good afternoon!” Nate got up from where he was working with his crew on the flooring and, with a smile spread across his face, made his way across the remnants of broken laminate to where they stood. He motioned around the room. “It doesn’t look like much yet”—
“It looks like everything,” Joselyn breathed.
Marcus nodded. “It’s perfect. And ours.”
“Ours?” Nate asked.
“Joselyn and I are now co-owners of With a Cherry on Top.”
“Congrats to you both, then!” Nate reached into his pocket and pulled out a set of keys. “Larry met me early this morning to give me these and asked me to present them to you.”
He held them out, midway between Joselyn and Marcus, dangling from their ring. Marcus gave Joselyn a nod, and she held out her hand, palm up. He held his right under hers, and as Nate dropped the keys into her hand and she closed her fingers around them, he wrapped his fingers around her hand. She looked at him with a smile so filled with excitement that he wanted to cup a hand behind her head and touch his lips to that smile. Instead, he just returned an equally excitement-filled smile.
“Let me show you around the place,” Nate said. He walked them through the building, motioning to where the built-in booths would be, the front counter, the back counter, and the edges of each room, walking them down what would eventually be the hallway leading back to the back rooms.
“The storage room Larry used in the back is almost exactly what we had planned for your party room. Which means that this room that he used as an office,” Nate said as they made their way back to the only structure that kept the building from being one giant rectangle of emptiness, “is very nearly the same dimensions we were planning for your ‘extra’ room.”
He led them inside the room then unhooked the tape measure from his belt, pulling out the metal tape over and over until it had spread from the outside wall to the door. “This direction is six inches wider than we had planned, which would take six inches from the hallway. And this direction,” he said as he measured from one inside wall to the other, “is about a foot less than we had planned. That wall right there is load-bearing, so it has to stay, but we can certainly tear out these walls and get the dimensions exactly as we had planned. Or we can use the room as is and save you some construction costs. I’ll give you both a minute— walk around the room, discuss it, and see what you think.”
Marcus walked around the space, imagining the finished room he wanted for his someday kids to play in. As easily as if it already existed, he could imagine the room with a play area, a bin of toys, a filled bookshelf next to a big fluffy rug and squishy seats for reading, and little kids enjoying it all. He could also just as easily picture Joselyn being the mother of those children. The two of them would take turns playing with the kids and working the counter, and stealing moments when no one was in the shop to be back there as a family.
He glanced at Joselyn and wondered if she was picturing the same thing that he was. Since they were alone, she stepped right up to him, just inches separating them, her face upturned toward his. “I think it’s perfect just as it is.”
A golden light shone through the window from the morning sun as if it was there just to showcase the way Joselyn’s jaw curved from her beautiful ear to her chin. He ran a fingertip along the line. “I thinkyou’reperfect.” Her silky brown hair fell in big waves just past her shoulders, looking bronze in the sunlight.
She grinned and grabbed his shirt with both hands, pulling him even closer, then planted a kiss on his lips.
He smiled into her kiss and raised an eyebrow. “Kissing me in Nestled Hollow, right next to a window without blinds. Daring.”
She laughed and gave him one more quick kiss. “We’re about to start our own business.Us. Me and you together. I think it’s safe to say that we’ve made a habit of walking on the wild side.”
* * *
It would’ve been difficult to stop watching the progress Nate and his crew were already making on their new building if it had been for any reason other than meeting their designer to shop for some of the big items they needed.
They grabbed sandwiches from Joey’s Pizza and Subs, ate them in the car on the way back to Denver, and barely made it on time to the meeting with the designer.
Since they were no longer in Nestled Hollow, Marcus reached for Joselyn’s hand as they walked in, and she slipped her hand into his. He relished the feeling. No matter how many years passed or how old they got, he couldn’t imagine the feeling of her soft skin against his ever becoming something that didn’t take his breath away.
From the moment they stepped inside the building, Marcus was overwhelmed. It was like a big-box home improvement store had married an interior design studio that catered to businesses instead of homes. He’d trusted Joselyn when she’d said they needed to hire a designer, and he had never agreed more fully than he did at that moment.
“Marcus, Joselyn,” Sandra said in her slight Texan accent as she walked over to them, her stride purposeful, her heels clacking on the floor with each step. The woman’s auburn hair was pulled back into a twist, showing off her dangling earrings. Even in her high heels, she was shorter than Joselyn.
