Swing and a Mishap (Summersweet Island 2)

“Middle field… I still can’t believe you called it middle field, Wren.” Shepherd laughs as he shakes his head at me. “How did you even type that without making yourself vomit?”

I laugh as I pop a white chocolate truffle into my mouth, knowing my cheeks are going to be seriously hurting tomorrow from all the laughing I’ve done tonight. It turns out Shepherd really was teasing about booking a plane to fly by with a message on it, and I’m glad for that. I think my heart would have actually melted right out of my chest if he’d done one more crazy-romantic thing for me. The flowers, the cabana, the live music while we ate, and the food were more than enough. Shepherd even hired a chef to cook for us in his kitchen, and he made us the best lobster risotto and filet mignon I’ve ever had in my life. Two servers dressed in tuxedos that matched the musicians came out to the beach to bring us our courses covered with fancy silver domes, quickly disappearing back inside Shepherd’s house to give us privacy. The conversation never stopped all through dinner, and neither did the laughter, from both of us. He told me about silly pranks he and his teammates pulled on each other over the years and bragged about his friend Nick and the beautiful family he’s created. I told him about the joys of raising a boy who maybe got too much influence from all his crazy aunts. We reminisce about high school and the conversations we had online when we first started talking again, and everything is easy and perfect and just how I imagined a date with Shepherd would be.

Now that dinner is finished, the servers have cleared off the table, and the musicians have gone home, we’ve moved away from the cabana to another small area in the sand Shepherd had set up for us for dessert. Surrounded by another small circle of candles in the sand are piles and piles of pillows and blankets, with a large wooden tray off to the side with an assortment of chocolate truffles, a bowl of fresh strawberries, and a bucket filled with ice and a bottle of champagne that Shepherd popped as soon as we sat down. We’re both stretched out on our sides facing each other after drinking a glass, our elbows resting in the pillows with our heads resting on our hands, a warm fleece blanket draped over my legs that Shepherd put there when he saw goose bumps on them a few minutes ago.

“Why didn’t you ever tell me about Owen’s dad?” Shepherd asks quietly, the last bit of truffle in my mouth suddenly hard to swallow.

I knew it was only a matter of time before he’d want to move our conversation to something a little more serious, and it looks like that time has come.

“Do you really want to ruin the best date you’ve ever had with something so messy?” I joke with a humorless laugh.

Shepherd reaches over to grab my hand that’s currently fiddling with the edge of the blanket beneath me, lacing his fingers through mine and tugging me closer until my face is just a few inches from his.

“I like messy,” he tells me with a small smile. “I wish you would have been messy with me the first time I asked.”

A spark of guilt shoots through me, and I look down from his eyes to stare at our clasped hands resting on top of a small pillow, watching Shepherd’s thumb rub back and forth soothingly over top of mine.

“I liked you,” I tell him softly, still staring at our hands. “I mean… I really liked you. And I couldn’t believe you were actually messaging me, and talking to me, and I know I should have told you the truth, but I just didn’t want the guy I had a huge crush on all my life to think I was a loser. And it’s not like I thought you would ever be into me, or ever come back here to live and find out. You had this amazing, glamorous life, hanging out with celebrities and being on television and in magazines, and I was just the idiot on the other side of the country who got drunk and made a poor decision and have let that poor decision treat me like shit for entirely too long. So I never elaborated when you asked if he was in our lives. Because he was. He is. It’s just sporadic and it sucks the life out of me every time, and I didn’t want you to know that part of me. I didn’t want you to see how weak I was or how much I let him walk all over me.”

“Hey, look at me,” Shepherd urges softly until I finally bring my eyes up to his. “You are not weak, and you never have been. Look at you. Look at what you’ve done without any help from that piece of shit. I have never met a more amazing young man than Owen. You did that. And you run a business, and you take care of everyone else around you. You are anything but weak, Wren. You’re the strongest person I’ve ever met.”