Chapter 45
BECK
“We should have done that sooner.”
It was hard to believe Mae O’Malley was in my arms, after having agreed to become my wife, and after what could only be described as the best sex of my life.
“Why didn’t we?” Mae asked.
I ran my hand up and down over the curve of her hip beneath the covers.
Because I could.
“Lord only knows,” I said. “If I knew it would be that good…”
She turned her face toward me. I swore there was no woman as beautiful as this one.
“Are you always this smug after sex, fiancé?” she asked.
“Only when it’s, as you say, that good.”
Mae’s sigh of contentment made me smile. “I wish we could stay here all night. What time do you have to get back?”
I scooted back to see her better. “What do you take me for, an amateur? I’ve got the bar covered all night. And opening tomorrow. Have to be back mid-afternoon.”
That seemed to surprise her. “Who’s closing? We have the room all night? But I don’t have anything with me.”
I tsked. “Mae, Mae, Mae. Give me some credit.” I pointed to the duffle bag in the corner of the room.
“What the heck is that?”
“Your overnight bag.”
I shouldn’t revel in her complete confusion. But I was pretty proud of how we’d pulled it off.
“I distinctly remember not packing an overnight bag. And also, that’s not mine.”
“Close enough. It’s your mom’s bag she packed for you.”
Mae sat up, giving me a stellar view. It took every ounce of self-restraint I possessed to keep my hands in place.
“Oh my God, that is Mom’s.” She lay back down in my arms and, regrettably, pulled up the covers. At least I could reach her again. “How did you pull that off?”
“Like I said, she packed it and put it in Jules’s car before you knew she was there. Ellie’s husband retrieved it from Jules when she dropped you off.”
“Dropped me off? Shit. Jules. I completely forgot about her.” Mae went to reach for her phone but I pulled her back.
“She’s long gone.”
Mae’s face was all screwed up in confusion as the pieces slowly clicked together.
“That’s why she was acting weird about parking.”
“While you went in and talked to Ellie, her husband got the bag and walked right past the two of you and brought it up here.”
“Get out of here?”
“Absolutely not. I’ve waited too long for this.”
“But… so Jules is gone?”
“Yep.”
“You got both of my parents, Jules and Ellie and her husband all in on this?”
“Impressed?”
“Yes, very.”
“Good.” I leaned down to kiss her. Mae tasted like sunshine and hope. A heady combination.
“I have to text everybody,” she said. “Do the guys know?”
“They do. You think I’m smart enough to come up with this whole thing myself? Parker and Mason helped iron out the details.”
Mae’s brows raised.
“Okay, maybe with some help,” I admitted. “I had the idea to do it here and Pia was the one who said I should call Ellie.”
Mae actually looked slightly disappointed at that.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. It’s just… there is no rehearsal brunch, I guess?”
“There is,” I was happy to tell her. “When I called, Ellie was delighted to help out. Actually said she’d wanted to call you about the brunch anyway. We were a little worried you might not drive up to have the meeting, or put it off to another day, but we had a contingency plan for that.”
“And the tea room?”
I shook my head. “That one was fabricated. Ellie wasn’t sure how else to get you up here.”
Mae’s head shook slowly back and forth. “Beck, the romantic. Who’d have thought?”
“Not me,” I admitted. “But you really do bring out the best man in me, Mae. I’ll spend a lifetime proving it to you.”
“No need,” she said. “I already know it’s true.”
I kissed her on the nose. “My little business owner. What do you say we get dressed… I can’t believe I said that,” I muttered. “And head into town for some food. You can tell me all about your plans.”
“I am hungry,” she admitted.
As if I couldn’t tell by the fact that Mae bounced out of bed and began to immediately dress.
“You coming?”
“Eventually. Just admiring the view at the moment.”
She pulled up her jeans and stood at the foot of the bed, watching me. And then looked down at her hand. “This is so surreal.”
“In a good way?”
“In the best way imaginable.”
I wholeheartedly agreed.
“Glad to hear it, because I have another surprise for you.”
Mae loved surprises. “What is it?”
I got out of bed, reluctantly, reveling in the way Mae’s appreciative glance scanned me from head to toe.
“If I told you, it wouldn’t be a surprise.”
Ignoring her “harumph”, I dressed, pulled a sheet of paper from my duffle, folded it and put it in my back pocket.
In some ways, I was as nervous to show it to her as I was to ask Mae to marry me. I’d convinced myself if Mae had committed to staying in Cedar Falls, I shouldn’t question it. Or sabotage us by second-guessing her decision.
On the other hand…
Old habits died hard. Despite myself, there was a small part of me that wondered if the next surprise was one Mae would welcome.
* * *
Most wineries didn’t serve hearty lunches, just charcuterie. But thanks to a conversation with Ellie, after she congratulated us and talked shop with Mae about the rehearsal dinner, we found a perfect spot.
Right on the lake, serving drier wines than most Finger Lakes wineries, our late-lunch spot also had a decent-sized menu.
“I think I’ll do a tasting since I’ve never been here.”
“Sounds good,” I said as Mae chose her wines. “Let’s get some food in too.”
We ordered, a perfect view of the lake reminding me of our last lunch. As much as I didn’t want to bring it up, it felt necessary to get out of the way.
“We’ve never had a hard time communicating,” I said. “But obviously it’s a different dynamic than we’re used to.”
“Just a little,” Mae said with a secret smile tugging at her lips.
“The last thing I want to do is spoil the mood, but it’s important for me to apologize for our last lunch.”
“Beck—”
“Just let me get it out there,” I said, having thought a lot about it.
“You know there’s not a lot of things I’m insecure about.
But being good enough for you is one of them.
Pia told me it’s important to talk to you about that.
To make sure we communicate rather than shutting down, even when it’s uncomfortable. ”
She paused as her wine, and my beer, were served.
“I agree.” Mae tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “I shouldn’t have left like that.”
“This is about me—”
“No,” she said. “It’s about us. Neither of us are perfect, and we’re bound to make mistakes. But I agree with Pia. Communication is so important. We just need to keep talking.”
I took a sip of beer, silently agreeing. “And having mind-blowing sex,” I added.
“There’s the Beck I know and love. The sentimental one is gonna take a bit of getting used to.”
“Eh, no need. He’ll only make an appearance here and there.”
One of those appearances came not much later, after we ate. Hesitantly, I took the sheet of paper from my back pocket just as my phone buzzed. Glancing at it, I saw it was our group chat.
“Looks like Mason’s demanding I add three hundred bucks to the pot.”
“Ouch. That seems like a lot.”
“I’ll have to argue the technicalities of it later. But the guys are claiming I broke three rules.”
Mae looked like the cat who ate the canary. “Never date the neighbor? I still can’t believe you made a rule just for me. And never told me.”
“Would have been a dead giveaway if I had.” I read the text. “Number one, two and three.”
“Never fall in love, never date the neighbor, never stay the night. Seems like three hundred bucks to me. Which one are you refuting?”
“Technically speaking… we never really dated. We sort of went from friends to fiancés.”
She made a sound of disbelief. “Yeah, good luck with that one. This feels an awful lot like a date.”
“Does it though? We’ve been going to lunch for a long time.”
“After sex?”
The mere thought of it made it necessary to shift in my seat. I was going to have a near-permanent boner for a long, long time.
“No. But that feels irrelevant.”
“I think you’ll need to find a good attorney to argue that one.”
A perfect transition.
“Speaking of attorneys.” I unfolded the paper. “So, about that surprise.”
“Usually people seem excited about surprises. You get this way when it’s about something serious. Like you’re trying to talk yourself out of it.”
She knew me well.
“That’s what I want to say first. This is just an idea. Feel free to knock down any part of it. I was going to save this one for later—”
Mae’s eyes lit with amusement. “But you have the patience of a guy holding fireworks and a lighter.”
“Exactly.”
Here went nothing.
“I bought your dad’s bar.”
She peered at me from above her wine.
“You did.”
“But it’s called ‘O’Malley’s.’”
“Yes,” she hedged. “It is.”
“So it would seem to make sense to me, if we’re going to get married, that an actual O’Malley should be part-owner.”
Her eyes widened.
“Before you say anything, I’m hiring someone to do the books, thinking maybe an assistant manager so I can have someone else to open and close and run things when we’re away.”
“Will we be away a lot?”
One of the reasons Mae had never wanted the bar was because of how tied down to it her parents were. “Yes,” I said firmly. “That’ll be important to making this”—I gestured between us—“work. Time away from that place. Especially if you like this idea.”
I handed her the paper and held my breath, waiting.
It was a sketch Parker made for me last night. The top sheet was a sketched layout of the bar’s kitchen. On the right side, marked in pencil, was a separate workspace labeled Pastry Prep.
“He can’t work on it for about a month, so you’d have to use your home kitchen in the meantime.
But he said it’s totally doable. If,” I added quickly, “that’s something you want.
If you want your own place, that’s fine too.
I know how you feel about the bar…” I stopped and tried to remember what else I’d wanted to tell her.
“We talked about featuring some of your things on the menu and have had so many people asking about them since the festival. I just thought, if you wanted to do that too… but really, whatever role you wanted to take in the bar. Or none.”
She cut me off by reaching across the table for my hands.
“I love it.”
Honestly, I hadn’t expected that.
“You do?”
“I do, truly. I never wanted to own the bar, for all the reasons you already know. But co-own it? With my husband? My best friend? With a built-in place to run the pastry business? This is amazing. I’d been looking at options and…
honestly, this couldn’t be more perfect. I don’t even know what to say.”
I squeezed her hands. “Yes?”
She broke into the widest grin. “Yes. A thousand percent yes.”
I almost asked if she had any hesitation at all. Going from “putting on the brakes” a few weeks ago to engaged and owning a business together… it was a lot. And quickly.
Yet it wasn’t. We knew each other inside and out.
No more doubting myself. Doubting us. I would take Mae at her word, trust her to make decisions for herself, and just be happy she’d said yes.
“But I do have one question.”
“Shoot.”
We pulled our hands back as the waiter cleared our lunch. “Thank you,” I said.
“Where did you get the money for the downpayment?”
“My dad,” I said simply.
She didn’t seem surprised. Maybe had already worked out the answer.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
That was an easy one. “Because I didn’t want you to think I was buying your dad’s approval—or buying you. I just wanted to keep the bar in the family. Even if it meant going back to mine.”
“I can’t believe you did that. I can only imagine how hard it must have been.”
It was hard. But worth it.
“For you? I’d do it every day.”
Mae shook her head gently back and forth, as if in disbelief.
“He didn’t make it easy, as you can imagine.
But he gave it to me. And when I went to the bank, there was actually twenty thousand more in the account than I needed.
It’s a loan,” I clarified. “I was already approved for my own, but I didn’t want your parents to lose their place and it was the only way to get it so quickly. ”
“Wow.” She took the napkin from her lap and put it on the table. “And he gave you twenty thousand more?”
“Yeah. I called to ask him about it. He said if I tried to pay that back, he would only re-deposit it.”
She looked as confused as I had been.
“It was a gift. For the bar. One I had planned on giving back, but I’ve decided to suck up my pride and use it instead on the kitchen renovations.”
“Beck—”
“I’m still sole owner,” I reminded her. “And I won’t put your name on there until it’s done if you give me a hard time.”
“You’re a real winner, you know that?”
“I do,” I said sincerely. “Today, it feels like I just won the greatest prize in the world.”