Chapter 31
New Hire
Wheeler
From: nick.kelce@
To: wheeler@, mollie@, duke@
Subject: Re: Bellamy Brooks Men’s Collection
Y’ALL I’M NOT EVEN GONNA SAY HEY I’M JUST GONNA SCREAM IN ALL CAPS ABOUT HOW MUCH WE LOVE YOUR BOOTS!
The City Boot is killer in that ostrich.
Our fancy customers are gonna LOVE those.
And the Country Boot is exactly the classic-with-a-twist silhouette we’re always looking for.
I know you said the samples were fresh from the boot maker, but if you’re game to accept orders we’d like to place one.
See attached for the details. Send me an invoice whenever is convenient for you.
Peace, love, and damn fine cowboy boots,
Nick
PS—any chance we could convince you to come to Aspen again for another trunk show? Maybe we try for the summer this time ;)
____
I yell.
Mollie shouts.
I hear the thump of footsteps, and then Duke, Ryder, Cash, and Patsy appear at the door, eyes wide.
“Y’all okay?” Patsy puts a hand on her chest.
“Is it the baby?” Duke and Cash blurt at the same time.
Mollie laughs, smoothing her dress over her bump. “Babies are just fine.”
“Come here!” I wave frantically at Duke. “Big news!”
He hustles across the room in his full cowboy getup, hat and all, and bends at the waist to look at the laptop screen over my shoulder.
I can smell the sweat on him. The clean air too.
He and his brothers just arrived at the New House for lunch—Patsy’s barbecue chicken, which she’s serving with cornbread and collard greens.
My stomach grumbles just thinking about it. Hell yes. Chicken is no longer the enemy. In fact, it’s something I suddenly crave. Now that I’m finally in my second trimester, I’m starting to feel worlds better.
Hungrier too.
Duke points to the screen. “Still makes me smile to see my new email address.”
“And Wheeler and I are still your bosses.” Mollie elbows him. “No horsing around, you hear?”
I laugh. “Love the cowgirl jokes.”
“I got lots of ’em.” She nods at the laptop. “Now read the dang email, Duke, so we can freaking celebrate already.”
Duke squints, the edges of his eyes crinkling in the most adorable way imaginable as his smile grows and grows and grows.
He looks at me, tapping the bottom of his fist on the desk. “Well, hot damn. How many did he order?”
“Only two hundred pairs of each.” Running my fingertips over the mouse pad, I click on the order. “Which means—”
“You’re well on your way to building a women’s and men’s cowboy boot empire.” He laughs. “Congratulations, Blue.”
“It’s our empire, dummy.” I wrap my arms around his neck. “You’re still good to go shirtless in the ad campaign, right? Because that was part of our pitch to Nick.”
Duke laughs, a velvety chuckle that I feel in my nipples. “How many times I gotta say you could pay me a hell of a lot less to show a hell of a lot more?”
“We didn’t offer to pay you,” Mollie teases.
I kiss his cheek. “We just brought you onto the team and made you partner.”
“Oooh.” He ducks his lips. “That’s one sexy title.”
“You’re one sexy cowboy.”
Patsy laughs. “Y’all need the room? I gotta finish up the cornbread anyway—”
“I mean, if y’all are willing…” Duke’s eyes gleam.
I give him a shove. “Success turn you on?”
“Yours does, yeah.” He kisses me back. “I can grab a shower—”
“How ’bout we celebrate first?” Cash asks. “Then we ‘nap.’”
Mollie bites her lip. “I like naps.”
“Who doesn’t like naps?” I rise, putting my hands on the small of my back. I’m achy and I’m tired and I’m so freaking happy.
And relieved.
And happy.
“You’re glowing, Blue,” Duke says later when we’re at home, naked in bed after the slowest, most delicious sex ever. “I’m proud of you. Proud of us.”
I turn onto my side and tuck my hand underneath my cheek on the pillow.
“We’ve had an awesome year so far at Bellamy Brooks.
So many wins we’ve been working toward for such a long, long, long time.
” I shut my eyes. “For a while there, I wasn’t sure we’d make it.
We were spinning our wheels year after year, trying to catch a break. ”
He nudges my knee with his underneath the covers. “But you stuck with it. Remember our motto—perseverance is everything.”
I nod, opening my eyes. “It really is. And today’s win—it hits different for some reason.
Like, I suddenly feel like our success isn’t a fluke.
We’re not just going to hit it big once with one collection.
People are banging on our door, asking for more.
Which is how you build a career out of something like this, right?
People wanting more of what you’re creating? ”
“Absolutely. It’s how you create longevity.”
“Yes.” Yes. “And I think I’m seeing for the first time how we’re not a one-hit wonder. Our success isn’t a fluke. It’s happening for a reason, and that reason is—”
“You were right.” Duke’s blue eyes bore into mine. “You knew you could build a successful business doing something you love.”
My heart flutters. “Yes. Even though everyone told me I couldn’t.”
I was right.
Holy fucking shit, I was right.
Everyone told me I would fall on my face trying to make it as an entrepreneur in the fashion world.
But here I am, making a damn good living doing exactly that.
Have I loved every minute? Hell no. There were entire years I dreaded going to Mollie’s condo in uptown Dallas to work.
I feel like I spent a good chunk of my twenties feeling ashamed to tell people what I did for work when they asked me.
But I couldn’t quit. I knew in my heart of hearts that this is what I wanted to do—be a successful entrepreneur in a creative field. It just took me a lot longer than I thought it would to figure out how to make that happen.
Took me a lot longer than I thought to realize I was doing the right thing.
I want to shout. I want to smile. I want to kiss the shit out of the man beside me.
I do all three, Duke and I giggling like lunatics as we make out.
“I was right,” I keep saying into his kiss. “Duke, I was right.”
“You know what else you were right about?” He takes my hand and guides it to his dick. He’s hard again, his velvety warmth filling my hand.
I give him a pump. “What’s that?”
“Me.” His lips move into a grin against my own. “You knew the night we met you liked me.”
I’m laughing as I toss a leg over his hip and guide him to my center. “Just had to get out of my own way to let you in.”
“Glad you did, sweethe—oh, fuck you feel good.” He glides inside me on a smooth stroke. “You meant that literally, yeah? Letting me in?”
“Ha.”
He rolls on top of me. “So now the question is, Blue—what else are you right about?”
I’m hit by a flood of thoughts—of certainty—as he fucks me to orgasm.
I was right about my ability to teach myself how to be a designer.
I was right that I could learn to run a business too.
I was right to keep going when everyone else told me to quit.
I am right about being lovable. I’m not the problem. Preston is the problem. Dad is the problem. The world is the problem. Perfectionism is the fucking problem.
I. Am. Loved. Look at this man, loving the shit out of me every day and every night. He never lets up. Never wavers in his worship of me and the little life we’re building together.
I am kindhearted. I am messy. I am fun and funny and a joy to be around—most of the time anyway. And when I’m not? That’s okay. That’s called being human.
A feeling bursts through me. It’s light. It’s laughter. It’s an orgasm I can feel in every corner of my being.
I’m going to let Duke all the way in, because I know he’s going to love what he finds.
No more holding back. No more pushing him or anyone else away. I’m moving toward connection now, not running away from it, breaking my own heart before anyone else can.
After we get cleaned up, I head for the kitchen. I play Milli Vanilli on the little speaker by the window above the sink while I make grilled cheese and Duke, who put on his glasses, throws together a salad with the season’s first tomatoes, fresh from Patsy’s garden.
“Wow, that’s good,” Duke says after taking his first bite of grilled cheese. “Just as good as the first time you made it, Blue. Thank you.”
“I always want to make you grilled cheese.” My voice wobbles, but I push forward. “Just like I always want to dance with you to the nineties’ best lip-synched hits.”
Duke’s eyes lock on mine across the table. He smiles. “I love the sound of this.”
“I love you.” A tear slips out of my eye. “So freaking much, baby. It terrifies me to think I could’ve missed out on all this if I’d kept being stupid—kept pushing you away. But I didn’t and now I’m happier than I thought I ever deserved to be. I feel so lucky, and I am so grateful, and—”
I don’t get to finish, though, because Duke is pushing up to his feet and rounding the table and grabbing my face in his hands. He kisses me, hard, and I feel his cheeks go damp as he keeps kissing me, his tongue in my mouth, his hands in my hair.
“Thank fuck,” he finally breathes, breaking the kiss. “Because I’m in love with you too, Blue. I always wanna dance with you and make you s’mores and go on treacherous road trips with you.”
“Dear Lord, let’s hope we don’t have any more of those,” I say, giggling like an idiot because I am an idiot for this man.
I am stupid in love with him, and I don’t care who knows it.
“Most of all, though, I always wanna be the one who makes you smile.” He runs his thumbs underneath my eyes. “You and this baby—y’all are my world now. Grateful doesn’t begin to cover how I feel about that fact.”
I kiss his mouth. Softly this time. “Can we dance now?”
“Yes, Blue.” He pulls me to my feet. “Answer’s always gonna be yes if you’re the one asking.”
We dance in the kitchen until my feet hurt from busting several terrible moves and my sides hurt from laughing. We dance to Billy Joel and Whitney Houston and old school Tim McGraw. Duke sings totally off-key along to Kenny Loggins, while I know every word to Reba’s “Fancy.”
The whole thing is silly and stupid and quite possibly the most fun I’ve ever had stone-cold sober. When we finally collapse into bed, I fall asleep almost immediately, curled up in my usual position as little spoon.
Sometimes, love really does win.
Thank God for that.