Flakes (Licking Thicket 0.50)

Every time she said it in front of Granny, I thought the poor woman was going to choke with laughter, but Sadie’s interest had been enough to get my Grandpa Irwin back out there. Now he, Ryder, and Sadie had a weekly fishing date. Granny usually tagged along to help me make a big breakfast spread for all of us to enjoy when they were finished.

We were building our family in Licking Thicket, and I couldn’t be happier about it. Since Ryder and I got together, we’d begun to connect with other couples in town. Maureen and Latonya were our closest couple friends since their daughter, Mollie, was almost old enough to start playing with Sadie. They’d asked us a ton of baby questions when Mollie was a newborn, and it had widened our circle to include several of their friends in town too. Now, wherever Ryder and I went, people stopped to talk to us, and it made us feel even more at home in the Thicket than we already were.

Ryder nudged me. “Baby, I think you’re falling asleep on your feet. Let’s get you home.”

I looked up at him, my heart full of love and light and hope for our future.

“I love you,” I said softly. “I don’t think I tell you often enough.”

“You tell me plenty.” His eyes shone in the summer sun as he traced a thumb over my cheekbones. “You’ve made all of my dreams come true, Col.”

“Then I guess we’ll need to dream up some new dreams together, huh?”

Ryder leaned down and kissed me gently, murmuring words of love and how lucky he was to have Sadie and me. We made our way back to the parking lot, passing Granny’s booth on the way and letting her shower Sadie with plenty of love and kisses. As we walked away, I heard her bragging to a friend that her boy “finally got out of his own danged way” and found happiness right under his nose. “I told Colin it was his year,” she crowed.

I rolled my eyes and grinned when Ryder bumped his shoulder into mine.

I glanced back toward Dunn and Tucker, who were still talking to each other excitedly about fishing as if all of us were still standing there with them. Dunn brushed a stray crumb off Tucker’s chest, his hand lingering there a beat too long, and Tuck smiled his thanks in a way that showed he was well aware of Dunn’s hand and didn’t mind it in the slightest. The air around them fairly pulsed with attraction, but both of them seemed as oblivious as when they’d first become friends years ago.

I shook my head. “Those two are the ones who need to get out of their own danged way,” I told my husband.

He peered over his shoulder. “Eh. It’s just not their year yet, as your Granny would say. They’ll figure it out. If we can, they will.”

My husband had a point. Sometimes you had to let everything else drop away and let your heart thaw enough to let love in. I hoped, for Dunn and Tucker’s sake, that their time was coming soon.

For me, I was glad it had happened at all.

I reached for Ryder’s hand, leaned over to press a kiss to Sadie’s cheek, and whispered three of the loveliest words I could think of. “Let’s go home.”