“Stop. I do not want to hear this.”
The brotherly warning made me smile.
“Thank you for giving me your ticket,” I told him. “Even if you think I’m cracked.”
“Good luck, man. For what it’s worth.”
I blew out a hard breath. “You still gonna let me come stay for the weekend? I need to see this famous Wilder family homestead I’ve heard so much about.”
“As long as Adaline doesn’t get a restraining order on you, sure.”
“She’s not going to get a restraining order, you ass,” I said calmly, but heat crawled up my neck all the same. “I’m making a romantic gesture to surprise her.”
“Right, right, the thing she posted about the thing.” He sighed. “I heard all about it. Three times. But I’m telling you, she doesn’t like surprises.”
“I’m hanging up on you now.”
Once I’d done that, I shoved the phone into one of my back pockets and made sure the mask was firmly in place. I ran a hand over the bottom part of my face.
Would she recognize me?
Parker wasn’t wrong—this was completely and utterly out of the ordinary for me. If I wasn’t prepared for every possible outcome, I didn’t call the play. But after biding my time for the past six weeks, watching her social media, it was one post with a picture of a raspberry-topped cake that had me hopping my ass on a plane to take my first last-minute trip back to the Pacific Northwest in five years.
Is it too much to ask that someone out there makes wild romantic gestures and looks at me like I’m looking at this cake? I don’t think so.
She’d said it to be funny. Most of the things she put up on her timeline were. The fact that I was even obsessing over her posts was ridiculous. I had to email my social media manager and ask her for my password. When she gave it, it came along with a stern warning not to screw anything up.
Not a problem. The only reason I looked was to just … see her again.
Before I entered the museum, I took my phone out again and opened my picture feed.
I followed about a dozen people. She posted more frequently than all of them combined, so it wasn’t unusual that her face was the first thing I saw when I opened it. It wasn’t like I needed a reminder of what she looked like. She was still tall with long dark hair, massive dark eyes, and a smile that was so fucking contagious it should come with a warning label.
According to Parker, she’d be wearing a black dress and a “black lacy mask thing.” I couldn’t wait to see her. Couldn’t wait to see if this jittering impatience over the past six weeks meant something big was on the horizon.
For a moment, I wondered if this is how it was for her five years ago. When she knew I was alone, and it was her opportunity to tell me how she felt. Maybe Adaline thought something big was on the horizon too.
My eyes closed for a moment, and I let the reminder settle in.
I didn’t know how it would play out, but there was no way I would look back on this weekend and feel like I wasted my shot. My chest ached when I opened my eyes and looked at her picture again.
Adaline was sitting on a green park bench, cross-legged, holding a cup of coffee and laughing at whoever snapped the picture.
Of course size matters. Nobody wants a small cup of coffee, she’d typed underneath.
How was it that someone’s smile could actually make my mouth go dry? How could I have gone the last few years without thinking of her this way? It wasn’t a fleeting thought in the hospital. It grew and grew in the weeks since that idea sparked.
Answering that and seeing how she’d respond to this cracked-in-the-head romantic gesture that could result in Parker’s early demise was the reason I was there.