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“I’m so glad you came,”Ashley told her, hugging her tightly. “Let’s go get coffee sometime, okay?”
“I’d like that,” Mira answered honestly.
“Thank you for the cake, and the tarts,” Madigan said, tucking her into his side. It felt like being tucked into the side of a house. “I’m not sure I’ve ever seen Cole smile so much in one night,” he said into her ear, his beard tickling her cheek. He smelled absolutely amazing. “So thanks for that too.”
Blushing for the fiftieth time in the last six hours, Mira said, “Make sure to wrap the top tier tightly tonight before you go to bed. It should be good and frozen by then.”
“What do we do with it?” Madigan asked, turning to Ashley. “Should we eat it before our trip?”
After they’d cut the cake, Madigan had surprised Ashley with a three-week honeymoon in Iceland, revealing the details with tears in his eyes and buttercream frosting in his beard.
Wrapping her arm around his waist, Ashley said, “We eat it on our first anniversary.”
“That’s not the only thing I’ll be eating,” Madigan purred.
Cole made a throaty noise, rolling his eyes while he took Mira’s hand and led her to the stairs. “I think I should walk you to your car before shit gets out of hand in here.”
It was after midnight, and the night air was brisk, bordering on cold. As soon as they stepped outside, Cole wrapped his suit coat around Mira’s shoulders, his lingering heat and sunshine scent surrounding her as she slid her arms into his sleeves.
“Which one is yours?”
She pointed at her Honda.
“Psh. And you said my car wasn’t hot.”
She gasped. “I’ll have you know that the Honda Element is a rugged, flexible, dependable sex-bomb. It’s also super easy to clean.”
“Is that what you want?” he asked, stepping toward her, inches away from crowding her up against her car door. “Rugged, flexible, dependable?”
“Don’t forget easy to clean.”
His warm chuckle ghosted over her cold cheeks. “Did you have fun tonight?”
“I had a lot of fun tonight. Maybe too much.” The admission, especially with his lips so close to hers, felt dangerous, like walking into a cage with a lion and shouting, “Here I am! Kiss me!” She might have been mixing her metaphors.
“It’s too bad…” He cut himself off, the unfinished thought hanging in the air while his eyes searched hers. She searched his too, both of them looking for something from the other. Permission? A reason to keep touching? A reason to stop? An answer to the unspoken question ofwhat now?
“It is too bad,” she said, whispering it, breathing it into the space between them, because even though neither of them said it, they both knew.It’s too bad you’re not here. It’s too bad this isn’t real. It’s too bad we don’t have more time. It’s too bad this is the end of something instead of the beginning.
A corner of his mouth hitched, and he leaned toward her, placing a hand on her car, right next to her head. “I had maybe too much fun tonight too.”
His body moved into her space, a magnetic pull realigning her molecules, spinning them one by one until they pointed directly at him. When his hips met hers, she wrapped her fingers around his arms, his muscles tensing as his tongue slid along his lower lip. Her brain screamedKiss me, kiss me, kiss me!And like he’d heard it, the desperate screaming in her brain, he angled his head, slid a hand behind her back, tugged her close, and brought his lips to hers at the exact moment something cold and wet nudged her elbow.
“What the hell?!” she cried, while Cole leapt back like he’d been electrocuted.
A giant, furry, panting head answered, Murphy’s cold nose nudging her elbow again, pushing her hand away from Cole’s body, insisting she use it to pet him instead.
“Cockblocking me, Murph?” Cole looked down his nose at the Saint Bernard. “Not cool, buddy.”
The dog barked, voices carried on the breeze as Bud and Brad came hand in hand down the stairs, and Mira sighed so deeply a dictionary might have insisted it was a moan. They’d almost had a moment. He’d almost kissed her. And now, unless she wanted Bud and Brad telling everyone in town she slipped the Makers’ drummer some tongue at Madigan and Ashley’s wedding, she needed to go. She needed to check in on Ian and her mom. She had to wake up early to start baking. She had to get back to her normal, not gazing into his gorgeous brown eyes, not getting freaky in a walk-in freezer, not almost making out against her car door like a couple of teenagers, life. And maybe Murphy’s cockblocking was a blessing, because it would be a hell of a lot easier to do all of that if she didn’t kiss Cole Sanderson. “I’d better get going.”
Taking another step away from her, he nodded. His smile was tight, and for the rest of her life, she’d remember it as disappointed too. While his gaze swept down her body, he snapped his fingers and said, “Come on, Murph. We’ve got to let her go.”
Her heart pumped an extra beat as Murphy dropped his head and ambled to Cole’s side. Not knowing what else to say—barely trusting herself not to blurt out, “fuck it,” and give Bud and Brad free tickets to an X-rated show—she turned around, opened her door, and climbed into the driver’s seat. Closing the door between them, she watched him watching her, his hand resting on Murphy’s head, his mouth set in a tight, resigned line.
When she’d been younger, she might have done it, rolled down her window and called him over. She might have risked her entire heart for a single kiss. But her heart was already stretched too thin, spread out in twenty different directions, none of them leading to Seattle. It had been a night she’d never forget, a bright spot, one of those memories that would always keep her warm, and that would have to be enough.
Keeping her window rolled up, she waved goodbye. When Cole waved back, his head turning slowly from side to side, an amused grin crept across his face.
