Swiping at the tears leaking from his reddened eyes, he looks around at the gathered crowd.
“I’m good. Thanks, everybody,” he croaks out hoarsely. He winces, rolling his shoulders. “Fuck, Uncle Daniel.”
Slowly, they all go back to their seats, eyes still glancing over at Ricky curiously. He waves at them, smiling kindly, before turning his attention back to me. “I’m sorry. Did you say she kissed you?”
I nod, stunned at his seemingly calm return to the previous conversation as if he didn’t just have a near-death experience. “Yes.”
“Huh, didn’t see that one coming,” Ricky muses as he takes a sip of his protein-laced latte to wash down the roughness of his throat. “How was it?”
I replay the kiss in my mind for the hundredth time, again feeling the moment when the shock wore off and was replaced with a rush of pure heat. How do you tell your nephew that it was a kiss beyond any and all description?
How do I explain what it’s unlocked within me?
Finally, Ricky chuckles. “No need to answer when it’s written all over your face. That good, huh?”
I don’t answer. I can’t.
Despite the fact that I did just tell Ricky that Tiffany kissed me, I’m not one to kiss and tell things that are better left private.
He takes my silence as agreement anyway.
“But you haven’t decided what you’re gonna do about it yet?” He continues, lifting a brow, staring me down. “I know you’ve been playing out every possibility in your head. Is that what’s had you distracted?”
He’s got me there, right on target with one hundred percent accuracy about my indecision, though I’d hoped no one had noticed my mental daydreams or if they did, they’d assumed I was contemplating business matters.
Before I can answer, from across the street, someone starts singing a very off-key version of the wedding march. “Dum-dum-da-dum, dum-dum-da-dum.”
Ricky and I, along with everyone on the patio enjoying their coffee, look up. I see a small group of women, all wearing some sort of white crowns with streamers down the back, hugging and laughing as they try to keep singing. One of them appears to be walking down a makeshift aisle of the sidewalk holding an invisible bouquet, and I realize that they’re in front of a bridal shop.
I smile at the scene and then, in slow motion, I realize that the tall black-haired beauty singing the loudest is . . . Tiffany.
In an instant, it feels like I’ve been sucker punched. The world swims, and I can almost see her in all white, her dress, her veil . . . her in my life, in my bed . . . wearing my ring.
It’s two, three breaths at most. But I swear that I can see the rest of my life laid out in front of me, a path that includes Tiffany. It’s a path full of promise, full of . . . happiness?
“A lifetime.”
“Like it’s fucking meant to be or some shit.” Ricky laughs, drawing my attention as I realize I just spoke aloud. “Soo, great run. Even greater brunch. I’ll see ya Monday at the office.”
Despite his dismissing me, he doesn’t make a move to leave. Instead, he waves his fingers at me, clearly telling me to get the fuck on. “I’ll take care of this with the waitress. Think she’ll give me a discount on one of the sandwiches since it almost killed me?” Not waiting for an answer, he asks, “What are you waiting for, man? GTFO!”
Getting up, I’m a man on a mission as I cross the street. I barely pay attention to the traffic, avoiding cars more on luck and divine guidance than anything else. I don’t give any thought to what I might be interrupting, only that Tiffany is here, she’s beautiful, and I need to talk to her, touch her, see what this might be.
My mind is apparently more decisive than I thought.
“Tiffany?” I call out, getting the group’s attention. She turns, and I see the light in her eyes go from bright and laughing with whoever this group of women is to something darker and heated when she focuses on me.
“Daniel?” she says on a breath of surprise. “What are you . . . here?”
The world disappears, or shrinks to only the space between me and her, which is filled with possibility. I reach out, taking her hand gently.
“We need to talk.”
Truer words might never have been spoken. Even so, she could stop this whole freight train with one word. Hell, with one look of uncertainty, I’ll back off. But if not . . .
A smile blooms across her lips, and it’s the most pure and shining example of happiness I’ve ever seen. That I put it there by simply pulling my head out of my ass is a fucking miracle.
“Harper, I gotta go,” she says, her eyes never leaving mine.