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I flushed and my vibrating was back, because hell yeah. I gave him a dazzling smile. “Well, you do love me…”
His eyes darkened, dipping to my lips, and his hand flattened against my back. He sighed. “Looks like I need to look for a local hotel.”
The bartender laughed, sliding my drink to me. “My buddy runs a place on the ocean not far from here. It’s usually full, but he tends to keep an area open at all times in case he uses it. He’s not around right now. I could see if he wouldn’t mind making an exception?”
Caden tensed next to me. “It’s a hotel?”
He nodded, pulling out his phone. “A small boutique sort of place, but people go mad over it. Can’t guarantee he’ll give you a deal, but it’s a nice place. Everywhere else is going to be booked up since it’s agate season.”
I had no idea what agate season was, but I was down for a boutique hotel. I looked back up at Caden, saw he was giving the bartender an assessing look, which I got. This was a small town on the Oregon coast. We didn’t know him. Didn’t know anyone here, but the whole point of the road trip was for us to be adventurous. If worse came to worst, we could sleep in our truck since it was renovated to be a camper. It was awesome. Caden’s brother, Marcus, was a big traveler so it’d been a gift from him and their other brother to Caden. The message had been to breathe a little and live since the business Caden started with his brothers was doing phenomenal. Though, it hadn’t started that way. The first five years had been hard, and Caden took on the brunt.
Since getting the camper truck, this road trip was partly a gift from Caden to me as well since we’d had a miscarriage a few months ago. I knew it was his way of trying to keep me busy, keep my mind off the little girl we were going to name Circe. So a mermaid bar? Totally need to stop a night to experience this place. If it was making me smile, Caden would do anything to keep that going.
“Here’s his info.” The bartender scribbled on a piece of paper and slid it over. He held his phone up. “I’ll send him a text, but you can check it out. It’s legit.” His eyes were sparking in amusement, but Caden took the paper and pulled up the website he’d written.
I gasped as he showed me. The place was amazing. Chic and sophisticated on the inside. A very cute building on the outside, a little dated, but the inside made up for it and there were pictures from the basement, a walkout going right to the beach.
Caden took his phone back and I knew he was going to do a search on the place, on the owner, etc. Just making sure everything was safe.
A beat later, the bartender’s phone buzzed. “My buddy said that’s fine. He trusts me. You can contact him at this number to figure out payment.” He gave us the number, and Caden took it from there. He already knew I wanted to stay. The trip’s purpose was to be adventurous and to lean in towards being spontaneous. This was exactly that. As Caden took his phone outside, the bartender went over to fill orders for other customers. I slid onto the barstool, sipping my drink. He came back a little later, pouring a drink, but asked me, “What are your names? Hope it’s cool to ask?”
“I’m Summer.” I nodded outside. “Caden.”
He glanced at my hand. “Married?”
That’s right. My fingers had swollen so I took my ring off, and since then, Caden asked for it. He was going to get it resized. “Yeah.” I didn’t explain anything about why I wasn’t wearing my ring, and he gave an easygoing nod.
“Cool. If you’re a fan of pizza, the chef here makes the best kind. Locals will start trickling in in about thirty minutes or so. It gets busy, and with the show tonight, the place will stay full.” He indicated a corner table in the back section. “That has the best view. It’s open now, so I’d grab it if I were you guys.”
“Okay. Thank you. We’ll do that.”
He gave another nod before heading back down the bar again, handing off the drink to another customer waiting.
When he came back, I put in an order for the pizza Caden liked, and ordered a second refill for myself before heading for the table he’d suggested. My back to the wall, I turned so my feet were resting on the seat next to me, and I got comfortable. Bring on the pizza, another drink, and whatever this show was going to be. I was down for it all.
Caden came in a few minutes later, spotted me, and headed my way. A slight grin was back on his face as he took the seat across from me. “We’re getting comfortable?”
“It was the bartender’s suggestion, and I agree with him. This table has the best view.” I informed him what else the guy had said and Caden was nodding by the time I was done. I asked, “All set for the place?”
“Yeah. The guy didn’t want to talk, but seemed fine with it. We figured it out. It’s not far from here.” The bartender was coming over with my drink, and Caden watched as he did. “I asked Marcus to run this place too, see if anything weird popped up.”
“Did it?”
His eyes narrowed as he shrugged. “Nothing that’ll affect us. Think he was just being helpful, not setting us up for anything.”
That made me feel better, and also the excitement just got even more. I felt like I was a full balloon and floating to the ceiling. Drinking with Caden was my favorite thing, or one of them. Mix in pizza, mermaids, and watching the locals? I wasin!
Also, it was close to Christmas so the place was decked out in decorations. A giant palm tree was in the corner with little flamingos hanging from it.
2
The pizza came over. A second beer for Caden. A third fruity drink for me.
I was buzzing when the locals started showing up, and there was a whole other buzz coming fromthem. They were excited as well, and I was feeding off that. We were getting a few looks, mostly the women were checking Caden out, and I could not fault them. A few middle-aged ladies were giving him looks, but also giving me smiles because whatever I was doing, they were enjoying.
Not that I thought I was doing anything. Maybe they could just see my excitement levels because I was not hiding that.
After eating, Caden and I played darts. It was heated and competitive. The heat level kept getting stoked because Caden would stand behind me as I threw and I wasn’t about to push him away. We’d been together all through college, been living together since, and we married five years ago. We also had two little girls, twins. Caden was doing his business, a tech company, but it was growing massively and I’d been busy going to graduate school. I was now doing post-graduate work, which I got paid for, but it wasn’t much. The last couple years had been hard so this trip had been a welcomed adventure.
