25. Paige
Chapter 25
Paige
I lazily lift my lids as the sounds of the early morning songbirds begin to take over the chant of the crickets. A lighter blue sky teases a new day as I am keenly reminded of the night Bran and I just spent together. A night under the stars after watching the sunset. And by watching, I mean making love as he proposed to me, the both of us climaxing just as the sun said goodnight and the moon took its place.
He proposed!
And I said yes.
I told Bran I would marry him as he was sinking his gorgeously thick cock inside me and although I realize I probably would have said anything to him in those moments, I meant every word. I meant every yes.
We’re engaged.
One day I’ll be Mrs. Brannon Finch.
Pidge Finch.
I chuckle to myself at that thought.
A smile spreads across my face as I think back on some of the things Bran said to me last night.
“Don’t you see, Paige?”
“See what?”
“That you’re my pigeon.”
He called me Pidge practically on my very first day.
He’s known in his mind all this time…
I shake my head in disbelief, counting every one of my blessings. I know these next few weeks or months may be a struggle for us as I’m trying to figure out what comes next for me, but knowing Bran is all in, that he wants a forever with me, will at the very least make our short-term long distance a little more bearable.
But what I don’t want right now is a prolonged goodbye. Perhaps if I simply slip myself from his hold as he continues to sleep beside me, I can pack my stuff in my car and be on my way before he wakes. It’ll be easier this way. Maybe I’ll only be gone a few days. Or maybe a few weeks at most. And I can always come back here to spend the weekend with him.
It's only two hours, Paige.
Get a grip.
And get moving.
With one more appreciative glance at Bran, I take in every feature of his face, memorizing what he looks like when he sleeps and reminding myself what he looks like when he’s smiling.
And what he looks like when he comes.
Quietly, I reach for my phone and snap a picture of him and then of both of us, me looking into the camera while he sleeps peacefully. My fingers signing, ‘I-love-you.’
I’ll send him this picture once I’m on the road.
Careful not to cause a stir, I slip out of the bed and pull my white dress back on, buttoning several of the buttons, and then step into my shoes. I grab my bra and my ripped white thong, grinning at the memory of Bran ripping it from my body last night, and then glance back at my fiancé one last time. I blow him a sweet kiss and then walk around the house to the other side of the street.
“I’ll see you soon, Winston,” I whisper as I pass the goat barn where I’m sure he’s either sleeping or waiting not so patiently for his breakfast.
I open the door to my house and quietly make my way to the kitchen to grab a quick cup of coffee from the Keurig before I pack and come face to face with Aunt Rosie and Uncle Javan.
“Shit!” I blurt, stopping short and bringing a hand to my chest. “God, I’m so sorry. You scared me! I didn’t know you two were here!”
“Sorry to surprise you,” Aunt Rosie says with a glint of humor and an unspoken curiosity in her eye. “We got in late last night…or, I guess early this morning, and thought you were sleeping. Didn’t want to wake you. But then we noticed you weren’t in your room but your car was outside, so we figured you must have been out with someone.”
Uncle Javan chuckles, bringing his coffee to his lips. “From the looks of it, Rosie, I’m not one hundred percent confident Paige did much sleeping at all.”
I cock my head, curiously eyeing my favorite uncle when he gestures to the garments in my hand, his lips clamped together to hide his amusement.
My body stiffens and my eyes bulge. “Oh fuck. Shit. Fuck. Dammit!” I’m so frazzled being caught red handed, or rather white handed, with my bra and thong in my hands, I can’t control the words that spew from my mouth. I bring a palm to my very red, very embarrassed face. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to walk in like this. It’s just that, well, I?—”
Rosie smirks, sliding a fresh cup of coffee my direction. “Want to tell us about him?”
“Uh, yeah. Actually, I…I do. I mean I should. Right? Yeah. I should. Since we’re engaged and all.”
Uncle Javan nearly spits his coffee right out of his mouth, grabbing a napkin to clean up the drool that just fell from his lips. “What?”
Rosie shakes her head. “I think he means who?”
“And when?” Javan adds.
“How?”
“Where?”
Rosie squeals and pats the breakfast bar stool beside her. “Maybe you should sit down and start from the beginning.”
My suddenly shaky legs carry me across the kitchen to have a seat with my aunt and uncle, hoping once I tell them what’s going on, they won’t immediately call my parents and rat me out before I have chance to talk to them first.
Rosie is all smiles as I take my seat next to her. “Do your mom and dad know yet?”
I shake my head, pulling my coffee mug to my mouth and taking a quick sip of the fresh brew. “Not yet. It only just happened.”
“No ring?” Javan asks, studying my hands.
“He said we would go shop for it together.”
“So, you’re not pregnant?” Rosie cringes.
I huff out a laugh while shaking my head. “No. Not pregnant.”
“Thank God.” Javan wipes his hand across his brow. “The last thing your dad needs to hear is that you came out here for the summer and wound up pregnant. Fuck, he’d never forgive me for that one.”
“Well now that that’s all settled,” Aunt Rosie says, patting my arm, “don’t hold back on the details! Tell us all about him because he has to be someone we know, right?”
My brows arch slightly and a heated blush creeps into my cheeks. “Well, actually, yes, you do know him.” I swallow back my nerves and replace them with unabashed excitement. “It’s actually?—”
“PIDGE!” The front door swings open and hits the wall behind it. “ARE YOU HERE?” His panicked voice raises all the hair on my body and inside I slap myself for leaving him without saying goodbye.
Stupid move, Paige. So stupid.
“brAN?”
“PIDGE?”
“Who’s Pidge?” Uncle Javan asks.
“Bran?” Rosie mutters. “As in Bran Finch?”
My head snaps to hers. “You know his name?”
“Of course, I know his—HOOOOOOOLY PENIS!” Rosie blurts, eyes wide as Bran runs into the kitchen stark naked.
Ooooh fuck.
Uncle Javan’s eyes bulge and he snorts into his coffee. “Wow.”
“brAN!” My eyes fall to his very…uh…girthy cock and it’s then that it registers with him that we’re not alone.
“Fuck! Shit!” His hands drop immediately to his crotch trying to cover himself. I fly off the stool and grab the first thing I can find to help him. I yank Aunt Rosie’s kitchen apron with lemons and a big yellow ruffle off the hook next to the stove and pull it over Bran’s head. “I’m sorry,” he says, breathless. “I woke up and you were gone and then you weren’t in the house and I thought…” He bends at the waist, bringing his hands to his knees trying to catch his breath. “I thought you were leaving me without saying goodbye.”
“Bran Finch,” Rosie says again, her eyes flitting between us. “Paige, were you…” She gestures to the two of us as I stand behind him tying the apron around his waist. “Were you about to tell us you and Bran are…”
I nod with a nervous smile, but only because my fiancé just ran into my aunt and uncle’s house stark naked screaming for me. “Engaged. Yes,” I finally answer with a hopeful smile. Uncle Javan doesn’t say anything right away but Aunt Rosie smirks and throws me a supportive wink. With her hand against her mouth as if she’s about to tell me a secret, she loudly whispers to me, “I can see why.”
Oh my God.
I’m not sure my face could get any redder if it tried.
Uncle Javan stands and steps toward Aunt Rosie. “You two want to tell us what’s going on now that we’re not staring at Bran’s junk?”
She pats his hand when he places it on her shoulder. “Honey, I think we can see what’s been going on plain and simple.” She wags her brow. I’ve always loved Aunt Rosie. Uncle Javan might be my favorite uncle because of his fun wit and sense of humor, but Aunt Rosie is a girl’s girl and is unabashed when it comes to supporting me. She bought me my first pretty bra, pink with lace and flowers. My mom only ever bought plain white- or nude-colored ones. Aunt Rosie would take me out for a girls’ day when she was in town and we would get our nails done and shop for junk food and then I would spend the night watching old rom coms and chick flicks with her. I used to wish she were my mom, but as I grew up I understood more and more that if she were my mom, she wouldn’t be nearly as cool to me as she is in official aunt capacity.
“Okay it’s not all like that,” I tell them both, clasping my hand with Bran’s.
“Mr. Starling, I’m in love with your niece.”
“And you actually talk to her?” he asks, his brows peaked.
“Uncle Javan…”
“No,” Bran stops me. “That’s fair.” He squares his shoulders and looks my uncle in the eye when he speaks. “At first, no. I didn’t. She showed up at my door soaking wet from the rain and slightly lost and I thought she was adorable. I wanted to talk her ear off and spend the entire night getting to know the new girl who would be living across the street from me for the summer, but I wasn’t in the right place to be overtly friendly. It took a few times of us running into each other before I finally opened up to her.”
Aunt Rosie winks at me again as Uncle Javan gestures to Bran. “Well, it looks like you’ve certainly opened up to her alright.”
Aunt Rosie elbows her husband in his stomach. “Javan cut it out. They’re both adults. They’re clearly in love and part of a good marriage is having a healthy sexual attraction to one another. Leave them alone. They’re not doing anything wrong.”
“I know it seems fast,” I tell my aunt and uncle. “But this has been a whirlwind summer filled with all kinds of new experiences and new friends and well, when you know, you know.” I glance at Bran who is watching me with hearts in his eyes. “I love him. And one way or another we’re getting married because I don’t want to do life without him by my side.”
Bran leans down and kisses my lips. “I love you too, Pidge.”
“Pidge?” Uncle Javan shakes his head. “What’s this pidge? You know her name is Paige, right?”
“He calls me Pidge because?—"
“Because pigeons are forever birds. Monogamous,” Aunt Rosie says, bringing a hand to her heart. “And you’re his pigeon. Oh my gosh, you two!” She steps toward me with open arms and wraps her arms around me in a gigantic warm hug. “I am so happy for you. We…” she adds, gesturing to herself and Javan. “We are so happy for you both.”
“So, you’re not going to call my parents and rat me out before I get the chance to tell them?”
“Oh, fuck no,” Javan cackles. “But only because I want to be there to see his reaction when he hears it from you guys. And please…do me the favor of playing this whole thing out just like it happened here.”
Aunt Rosie cocks her head. “Speaking of your parents, does this engagement mean you’re staying here?”
“Well, not necessarily. I mean with you guys back, I’m really not needed at the store and I can’t ask you to fund a full-time job for me. So, I think I’ll go back home, at least for a few days, and talk to Mom and Dad about giving me a store. I’ve more than earned it and it’s way past time. All of you got your own stores to manage at a way younger age.”
“And then I’ll follow her anywhere. I can fix cars anywhere we go. I won’t leave her side.”
“Well…” Aunt Rosie turns to glance at Uncle Javan who nods answering their unspoken conversation. “It just so happens we might have a store for you.”
Excitement bubbles in my stomach. “Oh, my gosh, really? Did you find a new place traveling?”
Aunt Rosie nods. “Something like that, yeah. If I’m being completely honest, we fell in love with North Carolina and decided we would really like to move there.”
My jaw drops. “What? You’re seriously moving all the way to the Carolinas?”
Uncle Javan wraps his arm around Aunt Rosie who smiles and nods happily. “Yeah. C’est la vie, you know? We’re not getting any younger and you know…” She shrugs. “When you know, you know, you know?”
Giggling at her reference to my earlier words, I smile back at her. “I totally know.”
Uncle Javan clears his throat. “So that would mean The Cuckoo’s Nest is available if you’re interested. We would have no problem whatsoever signing it over to you.”
Can it really be this easy?
“Are you serious? Like, really, really, serious?”
“Absolutely.”
“Judy Woodcock may have written us a few times during our travels to tell us how beautiful the front window displays were this summer. She told me in an email that I should beg you to stay on and well, if Judy Woodcock approves, then you must be something special.”
“She is,” Bran says with certainty. “She’s more than something special. She’s everything.”
I turn to Bran who lifts me off the ground in a strong hug. “I don’t have to go, Bran.”
“No, Pidge. You don’t ever have to go.”
“We could live here. In Tuft Swallow.”
“Whatever makes you happy,” he murmurs. “I’ll move you into my house today if it’s what you want.”
“And we can have a growing goat farm?”
“I’ll buy fifty more goats if you say the word.”
“And I’ll finally have my own antique store and you’ll have the auto shop and we can live happily ever after, just me and you.”
He chuckles and kisses my lips. “You and me and all the Tit Peepers this town can muster.”
“And maybe one day we can join the cornhole team.”
“I expect nothing less.”
“I love you, Christopher Brannon Finch.”
“I love you too, Paige…” His brows furrow and he whispers, “Uh, I don’t know your middle name.”
“It’s Fern,” I whisper back to him. “Paige Fern Starling.”
“A beautiful name for a beautiful girl. I love you so fucking much, Paige Fern Starling. And I can’t wait for you to be my wife.”
“Aunt Rosie? Uncle Javan? Do you mind if I grab a few things and then come back later for the rest? Maybe we could talk out details over dinner?”
“How about if we go out to celebrate? Shall we meet at the CROWbar and Grill around seven?”
Without looking at my aunt and uncle because right now, I only have eyes for one man, I nod. “Sounds like a plan.” I kiss Bran one more time and then murmur to him, “Take me home, Bran.”
He lifts me into his arms and kisses my forehead and then turns to walk out of the kitchen. “Oh, one second.” He turns around to face Rosie and Javan. “Mr. and Mrs. Starling, did you want your apron back?”
Javan laughs heartily while Rosie wrinkles her nose. “You know what? You keep it. Consider it a housewarming gift.”
“Right.” Bran nods. “Thank you. And sorry about my ass on the way out.”
And with that he turns and carries me out of the kitchen with all the confidence in the world. But that doesn’t stop Aunt Rosie from giggling and shouting to us as we head out the door, “It’s a nice ass, Finch! Your pigeon is a lucky girl!”
Bran beams as the door closes behind us. “She’s about to get lucky, that’s for damn sure.”
THE END