Page 45 of Love Out Loud

“Don’t eat my cupcake!” she calls as I shut the door to give her some privacy.

***

I make it through the audiobook edits faster and with less of a hard-on than the past few days. Things are looking up, I suppose, though it could be because these chapters are more plot and less erotica. It’s naive, but I have a vague hope that I might be able to get through this project in one piece.

When I pick up Lark from the studio, she’s as effervescent as usual. Things have been going well, and it has been such a privilege to watch her come back out of the shell she found herself in these past few years.

“So, where are we going?” she asks as soon as I pull away from the studio.

I smile slyly. “I was thinking of seeing a show.”

She straightens in her seat and leans toward me. Her sunshine-and-citrus scent wafts in my direction on a breeze. “What show?” she asks, clearly elated.

I laugh heartily. “I wasn’t going to tell you…”

Lark pushes her bottom lip out into a pout. She clasps her hands under her chin and makes her eyes go wide. “But it’s my birthday,” she pleads. “Tell me!”

“That’s not fair. I don’t stand a chance when you make that face.”

“Which is why I don’t use it unless I really need to. Power and responsibility and all that. Come on, tell me,” she begs again.

I sigh good-naturedly and glance at her before turning my attention back to the road. “Shakespeare in the Park.”

At that, Lark goes absolutely giddy. She claps her hands and bounces like a schoolgirl, and I can’t help but be delighted to have made her so happy.

“What show are they doing?”

This was the big surprise. “You’re not going to believe it,” I say slowly, “but they’re doing A Midsummer Night’s Dream this season.”

Lark gasps. “I love A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” she whispers.

“I know.”

“We did it in high school.”

“Did you think I could ever forget?”

She studies me thoughtfully, chewing on her lip. Then, she shakes her head. “I don’t suppose you could.”

I don’t know if I realized how ingrained my memories of her are into my psyche until she got here, but now I can’t unsee it. She’s as much a part of me as my own DNA. And yet I still want more. Even though it’s unfair of me to ask more of her than she’s already given, I still want it. I want to go back to that dance floor and press my lips to hers before she has a chance to tell me it’s a bad idea. To prove to her that it’s not.

We both sit in silence for a minute before I try to break whatever moment we’re having. “Do you think you could still do all the lines?”

She sits back in her seat and laughs. “I could totally still do all the lines. But I promise I won’t. That would be insufferable.”

Even though I told myself I wouldn’t, even though I know it’s a terrible idea, I reach over and grab her hand. She smiles her brilliant smile up at me.

Nothing she does could ever be insufferable.

***

We arrive at the park early. There’s a stage with a tall green set decorated in fairy lights at the end of a grassy field. I spread out a blanket as close as I can and unload the snacks I packed earlier to bring with us.

“You did not bring a cake,” Lark groans when she sees it. “How embarrassing.”

“It’s just a little cake,” I insist. “And it’s not every day you turn—”

Lark’s blue eyes narrow, and she juts out the bottom of her jaw.