Surprisingly I do have something to say in the Author's Note today, so please check it out on the end if you're interested in where this story is going, where it's been, and what's coming up next and that sort of thing.
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“Do you still think about owning your own bakery?” Sara asked, flipping through one of the wedding magazines that littered our little home.
I looked up at her from over my own magazine before looking back down at it. “I don’t know, why?”
“I was thinking we could start putting a business plan together.”
“We have other things to do right now, like get married and graduate and things.”
“Business plans take a long time to perfect. I’m just saying we could start throwing ideas around is all.” She said, watching me carefully, but I pretended I didn’t notice.
“Or we could start figuring out where everyone’s going to sit.” I suggested playfully as I flipped a page.
“Come on, we already talked about that one, people can sit where they want. At least change topics skillfully. Babe, I know you want this, I see it when we’re in the kitchen together. Remember in our design class when Chef Pikar told us to design six deserts and then make them for our final? You were so happy that day, doing your own thing and not having to listen to a chef tell you what to do. You really got to show off those few days. So don’t tell me you don’t want to make up your own stuff every day.” Sara pulled the magazine from my hand and tossed it onto the floor. Cooper, who was across the room and sleeping on his bed, jumped and made a low woofing sound.
“Alright, yeah, of course I want a bakery, but it’s not going to happen, that’s something that’s hard to get started and bakeries close a lot faster than restaurants. People can pay a few bucks for a shitty cake at the grocery store, in most people’s mind we’re overpriced and not worth their time. It’s safer to work the dessert line in a restaurant.”
I started to reach for another magazine, but Sara placed a hand on top of mine to stop me. She entwined out fingers together and brought our hands to her mouth, gently kissing mine. “Dev, I know that the safe route makes the most sense, that’s why it’s safer. I know that you want to do the right thing and look for a job that you won’t have to give up, I—”
“I want to do right by you is all, I want to make sure that we have enough money and can take care of each other and we never have to worry about bills.” I rushed out.
She laughed a little and said, “Devon, you realize that if you wanted to never worry about bills the culinary profession in general wasn’t that great an idea.”
“Yeah, well, maybe not worry as much.” I mumbled.
“What I’m saying is that I know you’re trying to do the right thing, and I’m sure part of it is about me, but it’s not what I want and it’s not what you want. Neither of us want you stuck in the back of some kitchen that you hate doing things you hate. I want you making ice cream and making Palmiers in your own kitchen. I want to see you smile when you wake up every morning.”
I squeezed her hand. “I already do. I have you, you’re reason enough to smile every morning.”
“I can’t be the only reason, I don’t want to be the only reason you smile. Devon, you want this, don’t let anything get in your way.”
I smiled weakly and closed my eyes. I took a deep breath, like you do before jumping into cold water, which strangely is exactly what this felt like, and then I said, “Alright. We’ll try it out.”
Sara squealed and clapped her hands. “Yes! Okay, now tell me, you must have it all planned out already. I wanna hear about it.”
I wrung my hands. I had flipped back and forth for a long time, at one point I had thought about an Alice in Wonderland themed place, but none of them had measured up to my newest idea. This one had stuck the longest, and it was the one that I could really see myself in a few years from now. Out of all the other ones in my life, this was the one I wanted the most.
“It’s stupid.” I finally said. It was one of those things that sounded amazing until I had to talk about it, and then I realized how dumb it really was.
“Yeah, well so are a lot of really popular businesses. I’m sure it’s not as bad as you think.”
I sighed and turned so I was facing away from her, then laid down so that my head was resting on her leg. She ran her fingers through my hair absentmindedly while I tried to find the words to say. “Well, I also want to start my own microbrewery. Maybe get Luce to sell some of my stuff at the bar. I could make beer and hard cider and stuff. Beer will always sell, so I’m not worried about it so much as getting it started and finding someone to help with it because I can’t do both jobs full time. And my bakery, well, I want it to be based off of alcohol too. I want it to be and old timey pub sort of feel and have a lot of the food cooked with alcohol or go well with alcohol. You know, make my own pretzels, have Bailey’s Irish Cream cupcakes, champagne macarons, and not everything would have alcohol of course, but I want richer flavors and stuff. Like I said, it would have that pub feel to it, dark wood and dim lighting and all of that stuff. That’s what I’ve been thinking about.”
Sara smiled. “I think it sounds good. It sounds like you. So let’s start planning it out, maybe we could talk to Luce a little and see if she wants in. We can do this, okay?”
I couldn’t help but smile back, “Yeah, okay.” And for once I believed it.
“So, as your best man, I need to know who your favorite strippers are.” Jan said as she dropped into the spot on the couch next to me.
“Hey, keep the stripper talk down, I don’t want Sara to hear.” I glared at Jan who just rolled her eyes.
“Sara, we’re getting Devon strippers for her Bachelor Party, you cool with that?” Jan yelled as loudly as she possibly could.
“I’m having strippers at mine, so how could I say no?” I heard her shout from another room.
Jan give me a winning smirk, “See? There you go. Now, give me their names.”
“Sara’s probably got the best ones booked already!” I tried sounding angry, but my laugh broke through anyways.
“Damn right I do! I already told Taylor who to get! You should be quicker, Jan, you’re dropping the ball.”
Jan stuck her tongue out in the direction of Sara’s voice and then turned back to me. “So, does it matter who I get?”
“Not at all, just make sure they give god lap dances.” I joked.
“I guess Luce and I will just have to try them all and compare notes later.” I doubted there would be a lot of comparing notes, unless they compared notes naked and communicated in moans. Ew, too much imagery there.
“So when is this party?” I said as I tried to bury image pretty deep. Or burn it. Perhaps send its ashes into outer space. Or sacrifice it to a volcano for a good harvest this year.
“Not sure yet. Soon? This week, next week, I dunno. I’ll figure it out, don’t worry your little head about it.”
I rolled my eyes. “You’re impossible.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Don’t you have planning to do? Some big event coming up that you need to be focused on?”
“It’s actually calmed down for the most part, we got everything together a while ago, unlike you. Sara even picked out the dress, not that she’d let me see it.” I crossed my arms over my chest and frowned. “I have a suit fitting or something tomorrow, which you would know if you checked your emails because you have to be there too.”
“I saw it, I just forgot about it is all. I’ll be there tomorrow, don’t worry. I can’t believe you guys are getting married. Devon, the woman I expected to be single for life, is getting married before me. Honestly, I’m kinda jealous.”
“You should’ve asked Luce out earlier, maybe then you would’ve gotten married before me.”
Jan’s face turned beet red and she looked down at the ground. She wrung her hands as she said, “Don’t say that kinda stuff, man, I dunno if I wanna marry Luce. I mean, she’s great and amazing and I love her, but I don’t know if I’m ready to go that far yet.”
“You love her, huh?”
“W-w-well yeah. Shut up, we’re focused on you right now.”
“Fine, fine, let’s focus on me then.” I smirked at Jan but dropped the subject.
“It’s been moving pretty fast, hasn’t it? Soon you’ll be an old married woman with three kids.
“I dunno man, maybe not the kids thing.” I sighed and tilted my head back to look at the ceiling. It had been a while since Sara and I talked about it and I was still feeling horrible about it.
“What do you mean? You and Sara would have the cutest kids I’ve ever seen. Why not think about it?”
“I’d be a shitty mom, man. I’m a bad role model, I slept around with everyone, I’ve never had any experience with kids, my parents were cool and all but I barely ever saw them, I’d have no idea where to even begin. I don’t know if I’m cut out for kids. I don’t even know if I like kids. The worst part is that Sara will probably want kids someday, what do I do then? I love her, I want to be with her for the rest of my life, I want to make her happy and give her anything she could want. But I don’t know if I could give her that.”
“I get it, I get it, but don’t let your past get in the way of your future. If you decide one day that you want kids, don’t let what you’re feeling now get in the way. Every parent feels like they’re going to be terrible parents, it’s a normal fear. I know it’s also normal to not want kids at all and be perfectly happy without them, but it sounds like it’s not that you don’t want kids but that you’re just afraid to screw up.” Jan said cautiously.
I hated that Jan said things like that, things that made me think harder about what it was I really wanted. I also hated that she would usually be right about it. I wondered if in a few years I’d be holding a baby with Jan singing I told you so in the background. “Right now, I don’t think I could be a good parent. And I’m worried that I’ll never get past it and one day Sara will want a little gremlin and I won’t be able to give it to her and she’ll leave.”
“Geez, gremlin? That’s how you think of children?”
“No, not really, but was hoping it’d help with the mood.” I mumbled quietly.
“Well, maybe kids aren’t your thing, and that’s alright, there are a lot of people who just don’t want that in their life. If a time comes when it’s what Sara wants and neither of you can imagine a life with what the other wants or doesn’t want, then you’ll have to deal with it. I will say this though, There’s no such thing as a good marriage ending. No perfect couple breaks up, because if you’re breaking up it obviously means that not everything is good. So if you break up one day, which I’m not saying you will, just know that it wasn’t perfect and you can keep going. Only bad relationships end. So don’t put all this pressure on this one decision, because right now this is the life you want and neither of you feel so strongly one way or the other that it’s getting in the way. Divorce isn’t the end of the world, I know people make it out to be a big deal, but it’s just another breakup, albeit a more expensive one, but still. Now the plan is to stay together and not break up, but if it happens it happens and you’ll be pretty down for a while but you’ll get back up. Don’t let what isn’t an issue now and may never be an issue get in your way of what you want now.”
“You talk a lot. How does Luce handle your big monologues of wisdom?” I bumped her shoulder with mine, trying to get across how much what she said meant to me in a simple touch.
She bumped me back in understanding and said, “We don’t actually have conversations, we just take turns giving meaningful speeches.”
“I’m not that surprised really.” That was a much better image than the hellish idea from before.
Cooper took this moment to lay his big, slobbery head on top of my lap and beg for attention, completely breaking the heart to heart moment.
Jan left early, she had some big date with Luce planned and wanted to get ready. Which meant Sara and I had nothing to do now, we had most of the ceremony planned and all the proper arrangements had been made, now came the waiting and anxious crossing of days on the calendar. So, to help with the heart pounding counting of seconds until we would be legally wed, I decided to take a walk with my gorgeous fiancé.
We went to our park. That’s how I thought of it now, no one else in the world existed in the park, it was just us. It was our own little world there. It was silly, but so many big moments had happened at this park that I couldn’t imagine it any other way.
Sara’s slim fingers were entwined with my own and her bright green eyes were following a bird farther ahead. She had strands of brown, curly hair flowing with the breeze and even crossing her face at times. She looked beautiful. She looked like a goddess stranded here on earth. She didn’t belong here with us mortals, she belonged on a higher plane of existence, drinking wine and laughing with other gods and goddesses, completely unaware of life below.
And as otherworldly as she was, she was here, with me. She had left her place above the clouds and was holding hands with me, getting ready to spend the rest of her life with some confused, average looking but deceivingly good in bed, boring, indecisive, and overall normal human being. I had read so many stories of some perfect being falling in love with the average and plain main character, but I had never thought it would be real. And yet here I was, the average and plain main character of my life with some magical woman. A real life fairytale.
“I can hear you thinking.” Sara’s light voice broke through the overwhelming awe and bewilderment of my own life.
“Just trying to figure out why someone like you,” I stopped and tugged her hand so that she’d turn and look at me, “would fall in love with someone like me.”
A smile broke out on her face and she stepped toward me, leaving mere inches between us. She looked up at me and her green eyes held more emotion than I’d ever seen in my life, “Devon Raines, don’t you dare ever question that again. You are as much my world as I am yours and I don’t want to hear you think like that. If I didn’t have a million reasons to fall this madly and deeply in love with you, then I wouldn’t have and we wouldn’t be standing here. So don’t question it, just know that I’m in love with you and that I want you in my life for the rest of my life. You don’t need to know every reason why I love you, you don’t need some list saying that you’re sexy and kind and your arms feel like home, you don’t need to hear that I think of you when I hear the rain hitting windows or when I smell pine trees, that your eyes bring me down to earth and your laugh makes me soar. You don’t need to know every reason why I love you, because even if I listed down every single thing, which would take up a lot of paper and we’d kill a lot of trees, it wouldn’t explain why I feel like this. Don’t ask me why, just know that I love you. Let that be enough. Okay?” She took my other hand in hers and squeezed them both.
I let out a content sigh and a small smile crept along my face. I leaned down and kissed her softly and tried to convey everything I was feeling into such a simple motion. I pulled away from her lips and let my forehead rest against hers. I kept my eyes closed and just tried to breathe her in for as long as possible. “I love you.” I whispered after a while.
“I love you.” She answered back.
“We’re getting married.” I wasn’t sure why I said it, perhaps it was finally starting to sink in, everything had been moving so quickly that it didn’t seem very real for a while.
She laughed softly and said, “Shit, we’re getting married.”
“Hey! Sound happier than that!” I said as I pulled away, a broad grin on my face.
“Holy shit! We’re getting married!” She practically screamed.
I laughed and covered her mouth with my hand and looked around quickly, trying to see how many people had heard. I saw a young woman on the park bench chuckling at us before she looked back down at her book.
I took my hand away from her mouth and instead wrapped my arms around her waist and pulled her against me. I kissed her fiercely and then lifted her up into the air and spun around.
Her hands were on my shoulders and her curls fell down around us like a curtain to separate us from the world. Her laugh was a sound only angels could have made, I didn’t think I’d ever be ready for it to end.
But eventually I had to let her down and we continued our walk, we sat underneath our weeping willow and we talked about our future bachelor parties, the bakery, graduation, our favorite flavor of Cap’n Crunch, what Pop Tarts were the best, and the book Sara was reading. It was one of those days that seemed forgettable but that would never be forgotten. There were a lot of those with Sara.
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Author's Note!
Hey all! Sorry for this crazy delay, but I have good reasons, I do.
LIKE I GOT PUBLISHED AND I'VE BEEN FOCUSING ON WORKING WITH MY EDITOR AND COVER ARTIST AND OTHER CRAZY PEOPLE TO PUT OUT A BOOK SO THAT PEOPLE CAN BUY IT AN HOLD PHYSICAL COPIES IN THEIR HANDS AND PEOPLE CAN READ IT AND YES THAT HAS BEEN HAPPENING, THERE IS A BOOK WITH MY NAME ON IT AND PEOPLE ARE GOING TO BUY IT.
This book used to be on here and was called With a Flame, now titled Life Beyond the Temple, and it is much better now that it's edited and things have been changed a little and there are new parts in it and it makes more sense and it's got a great cover and I love it. It's fantasy fiction and I am putting a link on my profile where you can order the ebook/paperback, so that's really cool, it's got lesbians and magic and elves and romance and it's wonderful.
There is another reason that I haven't updated this in a year now. I used to identify as a lesbian, AKA a woman who is only interested in other women (which of course you all know) but almost exactly a year ago now I realized something about myself. I am in fact a bisexual man with a preference for other men. I am transgender. So writing from the perspective of a woman was very very hard, especially at the beginning of this very complicated and scary discovery/journey. I have become much more comfortable with myself and I'm much happier and have really found myself in this long hiatus from writing lesbian fiction. I was very uncomfortable writing this during that time because I was trying to work through a lot of problems dealing with the idea that I wasn't 'enough of a man' and that I had to make up for it and I had to stay away from a lot of feminine things because I had some weird idea of having to prove myself. Anyways, the point is that I needed that very long break so I could find a way to be happier, and at the times writing about lesbians wasn't anywhere near what I wanted. Now I am more comfortable with myself and I am very aware that I am 100% a man no matter who my main character is (I read a lot of books written by men from the POV of women, like Dan Brown's Deception Point and Digital Fortress which are two of my favorite books and helped quiet a bit). I do think that the Life Beyond the Temple series and Cravings will be my last books about lesbians, at least for a while. I do plan to publish many many more books about LGBTQ characters, I would like to do more about lesbians but I think I'm going to try and write more than just that and about characters I identify with a little more.
So I would like to reintroduce myself to you all. Hello, my name is Nikolai (or Nik for short) and I am a writer here on Wattpad. You can buy my books through Dreamspinner Press and find me through Harmony Ink Press (Dreamspinner is the parent company). I write mostly Young Adult fantasy fiction, but I like to write romance as well and instead of getting that published, for the most part I post those types of things on here. Please send me a message or leave a comment below, I like hearing from my fans and friends and readers and passerbys and basically anyone. Let me know what you think about the story, but please stay respectful and be considerate. Contrary to what some of you think, the agressive comments about how I need to update this second or you're going to go insane are a little over the top. Trust me, I love hearing that you love the story, and I even like hearing that you want a new chapter, but find a way to do it that isn't begging or nagging or anything. Also the angry ones that accuse me of dropping the story and that yell about how it's been a long time and you're still waiting, I know it's been a while, but I'm writing for free, I'm a college student at a very very intense school, and I'm trying to learn what it's like having a social life. I love you guys, but every now and then (and it is rare) I get a comment or message that's angry and that's not a very good motivater for me to get back on here and put something out. I want to hear from you guys, but I want to hear about the work and what you think and about excitement, not so much how angry you are with me.
I want to finish this. And I'm going to. But please bear with me, I promise to do my best and finish these last few chapters in the next few months, but I'm also finishing the second book to Life Beyond the Temple, starting a new project that is hopefully going to get published as well, going to school, and a lot of other personal stuff. So don't give up on me, please stick around and see this through with me, just know that I may be a little slower than I used to be.
Love you guys.
-Nik