Total pages in book: 129
Estimated words: 125257 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 626(@200wpm)___ 501(@250wpm)___ 418(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 125257 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 626(@200wpm)___ 501(@250wpm)___ 418(@300wpm)
But no time like the present. As I drown my pancakes, slathered already in a heaping serving of strawberries, blackberries, and blueberries from the berry bar, I say, “So the list. You’ve got it, right?”
“Of course.” She digs into her purse, sitting next to her on the red vinyl booth at the Candy Cane Diner on Main Street where we’re having breakfast. “What do you take me for? Someone unprepared?”
A stupid grin threatens my mouth. “You’ve probably already entered everything from it into a spreadsheet,” I say, setting down the syrup and taking a bite.
As she grabs some kind of bag from within the bag, her eyes spark with excitement. “That’s a good idea. I am going to add that to my to-do list.”
I roll my eyes. “It wasn’t a suggestion.”
“But it’s a good suggestion,” she says, then sets the pouch thingy on the table. It’s a beige color and there’s a tiny dog illustration on the bag in the same sort of simple line work of most of my tattoos. For a second, I think that’s kismet.
But no. I don’t believe in kismet. A cartoon bubble sits above the dog’s head saying, Your dog is cute.
I nod toward it. “Is that a bag within a bag?”
“Yes. How else would I keep the list safe?” she asks, nonplussed.
“No idea,” I say, then take another bite to hide my grin because that’s so her.
But wait. I’m following a new playbook and with that new strategy in mind, I chew, swallow, then meet her gaze. “That’s so you.”
I say it instead of keeping the thought to myself.
Her smile is like the sun, and it warms me from head to fucking toe. “Thanks.” She sounds so pleased, so happy to be understood.
She opens the list from the unknown bride, setting it far enough away from her plate of tofu scramble to remain pristine. “Number two, take a road trip together.” She mimes checking off the item. “I don’t want to actually cross it off since it’s her letter, you know? It feels sort of wrong.”
“I get that.”
“Like it’s ours to do, but not to change?”
“Makes sense.”
She screws up the corner of her mouth, clearly thinking. “Why do you think it’s on this list of five things to do before you say I do?”
“I’ve been wondering that myself. And honestly, I’ve been wanting to ask you,” I say, and wow, that feels like stretching a muscle that’s been dormant for a long time. Like a hamstring that you haven’t given enough attention to. The honesty muscle. The openness muscle. Hurts like hell but it’s a good kind of pain.
She tilts her head. “You have?”
I stretch it some more. “I have. I want to know what you think.”
I want to know what you think about everything.
There’s honesty, and there’s also too much honesty. So that last thought stays locked up.
She glances toward my plate. “You love berries, right?”
I’m not entirely sure where she’s going but I jump on the train anyway. “So much I’m going to get a berry bar installed at my house.”
She takes a beat. Her tone is thoughtful and wise as she says, “I think that’s the reason for the list.”
“For me to get a berry bar?”
“The road trip. Why it’s on the list. For details like that,” she says, pointing at me. “For learning things like you love berries. And that you love to tease me. That you’re so confident about how you play hockey that you make ridiculous bets with your teammates, but you’re so loyal that you go through with something like getting a squirrel tattooed on your ass.” She pauses. “That you wish there’s something more you could do for your father. That you told your dad nice things about me.”
I don’t move for a few seconds. It’s like someone just peered into my medicine cabinet and learned that I take ibuprofen sometimes, and that my toothpaste tube’s a mess, but that I like to use body butter on my hands so they’re soft since they’re usually so dry from hockey.
It’s like she knows…me.
Maybe I was wrong when I thought I’d pulled back these last couple of days. Turns out I was still getting to know her all along, and she was getting to know me.
“Because you learn these things about each other on a road trip?” I ask at last.
“And that has to be good for a couple getting married, so that’s why it’d be on her list. But also because road trips bring problems you have to navigate through. Like awkward tension,” she says, looking at me with kind eyes, but ones that say yeah, I know there was tension. “And only one bed.”
My fork frozen midair, I give that some thought. “But we worked through the issues.”
“I suppose we did, in a way.”
I set my fork down, lean a little closer because she is so much fun to play with. “I guess the road trip helped you work through your little issue.”