“I’m so excited.” Then a sudden realization sinks in. “Why did you need to tell me before we met up with Bennett and Naomi?”
His smile widens. “I want them to meet us in one of the destinations. I was going to bring it up at breakfast. The magazine just confirmed everything yesterday, and I couldn’t work up the nerve to ask you until just now.”
“Because you thought I’d say no?”
His gaze penetrates mine with easy confidence. “Oh, no,” he answers confidently. “If you had said no, I would have just invited Mrs. Jenkins.” He waggles his eyebrows playfully.
“Jude!” I swat his arm, hitting solid muscle, but he drops me back onto my feet and takes off down the street with his hand outstretched for me to latch onto. The early morning sun encases him like a golden backdrop and I have to hold my hands over my eyes like a visor to make out his silhouette.
“C’mon! We’re gonna be late for breakfast, slow poke,” he yells back to me, but I don’t budge. I stand there, telling myself to remember this moment in the back of my mind, knowing my life will never be the same.
The smile that forms on my lips nearly splits my cheeks in half as I try to contain every emotion short-circuiting through me. I was so used to the gloom, the loneliness, the pain, the fog, but this is the exact opposite.
This is blissful oblivion.