Bonfire Beach by Lily Everett Page B

he was going in, he might as well go all in. “I’ve got one more thing to show you.”
    “Out in the cold? As you pointed out, it’s kind of nuts to throw an outdoor party on a beach in the wintertime, much less to walk down to the shoreline.”
    But Felicity didn’t resist the tug on her hand, her cold fingers barely twitching in Zane’s grasp. He clasped the slender digits tighter and brought their joined hands to his mouth, breathing on them to warm them up. His mind raced ahead, down the beach to his last big surprise. That would chase away the chill of the night air.
    He led her away from the heated tent and across the sand to a mammoth pile of driftwood a few safe feet back from the high tide mark. The line of luminarias along the boardwalk flickered in the distance, lighting the path from the yacht club to the glass-sided reception hall, but all the guests had already found their way to the party. It was only the two of them shivering out in the gusty salt breeze off the waves.
    Keeping tight hold of Felicity, Zane reached his free hand into his pocket and withdrew his favorite silver Zippo lighter. “This was my brother’s,” he told her, not even trying to hide the husk of emotion in his voice. “I thought it was so cool, the way he’d flip it open. He showed me how to light it one-handed, by catching the lid on my pants leg and striking the flint at the same time. Let’s see if I still have the touch.”
    “Zane, what is all this?” Felicity sounded overwhelmed, near tears herself, and Zane’s heart swelled until it felt as if it would burst out of his chest.
    Flipping the Zippo down in one swift move, he breathed a sigh of relief when the spark struck on the first try. A tiny flame flickered up from the lighter, dancing in the wind, and Zane bent to hold it to one of the tinder sticks he’d placed strategically around the bottom of the driftwood pile.
    The flame smoked, then caught, racing down the stick to the center of the pile. Zane smiled at the crackle of fire and pulled Felicity with him as he lit the other tinder sticks around the base, one by one, then stood back to watch it smolder into life.
    “It’ll take a while to really get going,” Zane explained, looking for the right words to say what he felt. He’d never been speechless in his life, but words were harder when the feeling behind them was real.
    “Zane.” Felicity stopped there, just his name, and he didn’t know what that meant. Maybe she didn’t understand yet what all of this meant.
    “You didn’t want a disco ball or fireworks, so I built a bonfire on the beach instead,” he said, watching the valiant flames struggle to catch and grow. He didn’t want to look at her, in case she had actually gotten it but thought all of this, his last ditch effort to show her his heart, was unbearably lame.
    “I wanted candlelight, you wanted a disco ball—so your compromise was crystal chandeliers followed by a bonfire on the beach?”
    Her voice sounded strange. He couldn’t read the tone. “You wanted jazz and I wanted rock stars,” Zane clarified doggedly, still staring at the struggling fire.
    “So you gave me rock stars singing jazz,” Felicity finished. “On the beach. Oh, Zane!”
    When he finally mustered up the courage to glance down at her, an entire constellation of stars shone from her eyes. Cheeks flushed pink, sleek fancy braid torn to pieces by the wind, eyes shining and chest heaving, Felicity had never looked more beautiful to him than she did in that moment. Because she got it. And she didn’t think it was lame.
    All of that made it easy for Zane to say, “You wanted romance. And I wanted to give it to you. Because you deserve it, and because I love you.”
    Twin tears made silvery tracks down her cheeks, but Felicity was laughing, too, as she threw her arms around his neck and all but climbed him like a ladder. “I love you, too! I was going to tell you as soon as I saw you today, but then you wouldn’t