Romance vs. Reality

The other night I closed my fantasy romance novel and felt an extreeeeme book hangover coming on. I held my youngest as her breathing evened out and she fell into a deeper sleep. I heard the chime of the ring door alert as my husband came in from working in the garage. Then listened as the shower water ran. I slowly climbed out from under #4s blankets and decided in that moment, romance doesn’t have to be fiction.

I read novel after novel with these devastating handsome male leads. Men with power that emanates from them, the strong silent type that only speak when necessary and as a result when they do, people listen. I’m talking obnoxiously sculpted corded vein forearms men with a tattoo perfectly placed, accentuating the muscles built either in years of hard work or battle. Protective, possessive men but written in a way that’s not creepy or abusive.

I decided this night, that I married one of those men. I didn’t need to suffer from a book hangover because I could go write my own spicy novel. I walked down the stairs quietly with one thing on my mind.

Tanner sat on the love seat with the footrest out. He was reading something on his phone. He heard me or as a novel would say “sensed my presence” because we are bonded and the atmosphere shifts when one of us enters the room. It’s subtle but he felt me 😂🫠.

Back to reality, he looked up and smiled. “Hi” he said setting his phone to the side.

“Hi” I smiled back. He felt it, or just knew from having been together for for 16 years. His smile turned knowing and his head cocked to the side like he was waiting for me to show my hand.

I slowly walked up to him, lifted my leg and pushed the foot rest down. Or tried. It wouldn’t move. I attempted with a little more force, it still did not budge. This stupid couch. I put all my weight on my right foot and shoved hard with an audible grunt. Tanners body shifted slightly from the force I placed on the foot rest but not far enough forward to allow the foot rest to collapse down. He let out a laugh and helped me put it down.

This is fine. I can recover. I am a grown confident women and this man still stops mid sentence if I’m changing into granny panties so I KNOW this moment is not lost by any means.

I climb on top of his lap, placing my left knee to the left of his thigh and right where I’d like to place my right knee on the other side, is the arm rest. In my novel, he would’ve been sitting centered on the couch. And I can’t very well tell him “please move to your left so I can sit on your lap and kiss you like my life depends on it”. So I gently nudge thinking, he will get the hint.

He did not. In my novel I would say this was a result of his brain short circuiting and he was incapable of thought comprehension because of his primal need to feel my body pressed to his.

But what actually happened was, in my attempt to gently nudge my leg into the too small space between his leg and the arm rest, my shirt swung forward. To be specific the AirPod case in the breast pocket of my jacket swung forward…

Right

Into

His

Teeth.

Clearly your girls still got it 🙄

“Ouch! What the heck do you have in your pocket” he huffs out a laugh.

“Would you just MOVE over?!?!?” I grit through my teeth trying to physically move him while also sitting on him. Still laughing, he effortlessly shifts to center on the couch and I settle into place. I lean in and hug him, taking in the scent of crisp ocean water lingering from his soap. He’s warm under my cheek as I kiss his neck and nuzzle in. But my awkwardly long torso means I have to scrunch down to “fit” into the crook of his neck. And when I try to take a breath because it feels as though my lungs are being compressed, he starts to dig his chin into my shoulder.

This should offend me but also sort of feels like a massage so I breathe in, deeper this time. His chin digs in more aggressively and I wince “ow! What are you doing?!?” I scrunch down again.

“You’re choking me with your shoulder!!! I know what you’re up to!” He says indignantly.

How did we get here? This is most definitely not what I had imagined. I sit up and laugh. He laughs too. And then, I kiss him.

A delightful little kiss.

And then I look at him “why don’t you ever kiss me like you mean it?”

He rearranges his dip so that it is front and center in his bottom lip. “Come here, I’ll kiss you like I mean it”

I cringe “mmmmm no thanks.” A laugh rumbles from the back of his throat that catches me off guard. It’s a genuine laugh that still makes my heart skip a beat.

“Actually, let me kiss you” he looks confused as I lean in and then use my lips to smash that big wad of dip right into this teeth until it squishes smaller and disperses all across his mouth.

He sighs and then laughs as he takes the next three minutes to attempt to gather the tobacco shreds back into place.

“Just give up already and spit it out” I smirk.

“Never” he leans forward and kisses me. It might not cause power to flow across my fingertips, it might not pause time or tip my world upside down, but in this moment, I know from the bottom of my heart, he means it.