Katie: Tonight was kind of like a dirty fairy tale.
* * *
Harlan: It sure was, sweetheart. Let’s turn those pages some more.
I can’t get Harlan out of my mind, but I have to the next day when my sister and I meet with a potential business partner about our yoga studio and the new style of classes that we’ve brainstormed.
It’s an incredible meeting, and now I’m feeling all kinds of fairy-tale-ish—in business and in romance.
Everything seems possible.
7
Harlan
The best night ever is followed by a great weekend.
Texting with Katie.
Flirting with Katie.
Winning a football game.
Making plans for Tuesday.
I’m not in the market for a relationship, but there was something about her that was impossible to ignore. A spark. A possibility.
A connection I want to explore.
I haven’t felt this in a long time with anyone.
When I leave the field on Sunday and head home, I’m ready to crash, but I send her a text first.
Harlan: Still can’t wait to see you.
An hour later, she replies.
Katie: I can’t wait to see you too. But I can’t make our date this Tuesday. The business partner wants to fly us both to Los Angeles to look at possible studio space there. She loved the classes that we’ve planned.
* * *
Harlan: That’s fantastic news! And no worries, sweetheart. You let me know when you can reschedule.
* * *
Katie: I promise, sexy man. I need that lip gloss. Need you to mess it up for me.
* * *
Harlan: And I will. We’ll have that double scoop of Sexual Tension Swirl and Swoon.
* * *
Katie: *licks lips in anticipation*
A couple nights later, another text lands on my phone.
Katie: Sooooo . . . the business partner made us a crazy amazing offer . . . the kind of offer that sweeps every other plan off the drawing board. This is last minute, but I’m moving to LA. This weekend. Raincheck sometime?
Whoa.
Harlan: Moving moving? As in moving to LA . . . now?
But even as I send the text, I know the answer. She’s made it clear, although I still can’t quite believe it.
Katie: Yes! I’m excited, but I’ll miss our date, and you. We have to do a raincheck.
My shoulders sag, and I sigh. The sad kind. But what can you do?
Harlan: Definitely.
I don’t hear from her again, but that’s okay. It was one night. I don’t text her, either, because there’s no point. Nor does she text me. But I hear from Jones and Jillian that she’s happy in Los Angeles, building her yoga empire with her sister.
So it goes. Sometimes you have one perfect night, and that’s all.
And sometimes you meet again more than seven years later.
The next time I see Katie, I’m a single dad with a six-year-old daughter, and it’s Katie’s wedding day.
Katie and Harlan’s romance continues in the full-length novel A Wild Card Kiss! Turn the page…
A Wild Card Kiss
More Than Seven Years Later
1
Katie
I wasn’t one of those girls who imagined her wedding day from the time she was small.
Or at any time.
I didn’t fantasize about walking down the aisle and into the arms of the Prince Charming of my dreams.
No way.
For one, I was agnostic about the existence of Prince Charming. And two, I was emphatically atheistic about princesses.
Didn’t believe in being one, acting like one, or becoming one.
When I was growing up, my dreams were pragmatic—make friends, be awesome, and kick unholy ass.
I blame my dad.
He instilled in me a belief that I could do anything I set out to if I used my brain and heart.
Getting married was never on my vision board.
But today I am that person.
It’s my wedding day, and I just can’t wait to say I do. Hell, I’ve been floating on air since Silvio proposed four months ago, after two mere months of dating.
“Fair warning. You three are going to have to stop me from running across the lawn and into Silvio’s arms,” I say to my crew as we get ready, my hairstylist working on my updo.
“Ah, so you’re going to be one of those brides,” Emerson quips as she fishes in her makeup bag in the suite at the Legion of Honor, where I’ll be doing the aforementioned forty-yard dash into my tall, dark, and handsome groom’s arms.
I smile, owning it. “Yup. It’s going to be so cheesy, but so romantic, and none of you will be able to stop me. In fact, you’ll all melt into puddles of swoon,” I say.
Ever so briefly, a memory rushes over me.
A pint of Swoon.
But I push away the imaginary ice cream flavor. It’s bad form to think of past men on your wedding day, even for a second. And why would I when my main man might as well have stepped straight out of Central Casting and into the role of my Romeo?
My heart flutters.
I’m getting married.
The girl who never fantasized about dresses or I dos is ready to skip to her guy in about an hour.
Hold me back, world.
As my stylist clips the sides of my hair into a silver barrette, I can’t stop smiling stupidly at my reflection in the mirror. Karissa surveys my peeps—Jillian is perched on the couch; my sister, Olive, sits on the desk; and Emerson stands next to her, still sorting through a makeup bag. Skyler ran out to refill a water bottle but she should be back soon.
“Say the word, and I’ll arm wrestle Katie till she stops waxing on about her groom,” Karissa says to my friends.
Jillian taps her chin, deep in thought. “I’m tempted simply because of the arm-wrestling match.”
I pinch Karissa’s toned biceps. “She’d win. She’s got Gal Gadot arms.”
“I moonlight as Wonder Woman,” Karissa says as she runs a flat iron over one of my blonde curls. My hair has darkened a bit over the years. It was bright blonde when I was younger, golden in my twenties, and now it’s heading into a dark blonde palette. Seems fitting—I still feel perky and bold, but stronger, surer of myself, and maybe a touch more vulnerable too. Time has done its thing. So, letting my natural color shine through fits who I’ve become in my mid-thirties and who I want to keep being—the best me possible.
“But seriously, I am so happy for you I could cry rainbows,” Karissa says as she squeezes my shoulder. “You’re going to be the most gorgeous bride in all of San Francisco. I swear, Silvio won’t know what hit him.”
“I don’t know what hit me.” I lean back in the chair, catching Emerson’s knowing look as our eyes meet in the mirror.