Page 169 of Securing the Pucking Rebound

“Yeah.”

Silence falls between us for a few minutes, and when Calvin next speaks, he surprises me all over again.

“I never thought I’d find this,” he confesses quietly. “I know what everyone thinks of me. Fuckboy who won’t ever settle down. But that’s not true.”

“I know,” I assure him.

“I mean, I…yeah, I hooked up with a lot of women. But that was only because I never found one I wanted to spend more time with. If I’m being honest, most of them annoyed me, and the less time I spent with them, the better. They only wanted me for one thing. And yeah, I guess you could say the same of me. But I knew things would change if I were ever to meet you.”

“Me?” I squeak.

“Yeah,” he confirms as he turns to look at me. “You. Everything changed the moment you came into my life.”

He works his jaw as he turns back to focus on the road. I sense there’s so much more he wants to say, but he’s holding back.

Allowing him the time he needs to process his thoughts, I dive into the bag to see what kind of food he packed.

“The mystery continues,” I muse as I pull out an array of fancy picnic food.

“I wasn’t sure what you’d like, so I got everything.”

“And this is just the appetizer?” I ask, staring down at the food in my lap. Sausage rolls, samosas, olives, chorizo, sushi. He’s not lying; I’m pretty sure he did buy everything.

“Yeah, there’s more in the trunk.”

I narrow my eyes at him. “So we are going for a picnic.”

He glances over with a smirk on his face. “I can neither confirm nor deny.”

“Nighttime picnic in December is a little left field, I gotta say.”

“Maybe. But it’s going to be worth it,” he assures me.

It’s forty-five minutes before I start to get a good idea about where we’re going, and it only confirms my picnic idea.

But…but why? Why out of everything are we in Joshua Tree National Park after dark on a Friday night?

“Are you meant to be driving down this track?” I ask, unable to ignore the fact that we’ve missed numerous parking lots.

“I called in a favor.”

“Of course you did,” I tease.

“If my leg wasn’t fucked, we’d walk, but that isn’t an option right now, and I really wanted to bring you out here,” Calvin explains before he pushes the door open and climbs out.

Without thinking, I do the same, and he growls at me when he rounds the trunk and discovers I didn’t wait for him.

He shakes his head and pops the trunk, letting me see everything he’s organized for this date.

“How far have we got to carry all this?”

“Not very.”

“Uh…”

“Can you take the blanket? Don’t worry, it’s heated.”

I nod and tuck the fabric under my arm before following him.