I clear my throat, trying to tell myself the scent is objectionable even as I crave more of it. “Why, how long do you think it will take?”
“An hour and a half? Two?”
I can’t help but groan.
“You’ll be having dinner with me too,” she points out. “Our parents want us to get along.”
“If you want to have dinner with me, by all means, I’d be thrilled to have a sit-down dinner with you. I was going to suggest it earlier…before you got down on your knees.”
Her eyes crease with her smile. “You were?”
She seems pleased, which makes me feel unreasonably happy. “I was.”
“So everything worked out the way you wanted it to.”
“If you say so,” I reply wryly.
Her smile is filling her whole face now, and I’ll be damned—I’ve become a man who can make Nora Leigh smile. I should get an award for that instead of my work in robotics.
“You know…” she says slowly. “You’re more interesting than I thought you were.”
“And you’re exactly as interesting as I knew you were.”
She seeks out my gaze, and I hold eye contact with her for a long moment before she breaks it, blinking, and takes a step back. “I’m glad we’re going to be hanging out, Cormac.”
I laugh. “Lucky me. I thought my secret fake girlfriend hated me.”
“No, I only ever held you in contempt.”
She lifts her hand. I go perfectly still as she brings it to my face and straightens my bent glasses, her fingers lingering.
For a strained moment, it feels like time is broken and we’ll spend an eternity in this moment, her fingers softly pressed to my flesh.
Then someone calls her name over the latest four-decade-old top forty hit, and she draws her hand back, scrunching her nose. “I better go see what that’s all about.”
Before she turns away, she hands me a card. The brewery’s logo is on one side, her name and a telephone number on the other. “Text me, and we’ll figureout plans.”
“For Cookie, or our ruinous double date?” I push my glasses up on my nose and study the card, feeling a buzz of anticipation. The date is definitely a terrible idea, but I don’t mind the thought of spending more time with spicy Nora. Especially now that she’s decided we’re temporary allies.
“I can’t tell whether you’re trying to be funny or not.”
“If I’m succeeding, let’s say I was trying. I’ll be gone from Friday to Sunday. That’s when I’ll need you to stay with Cookie.”
“Okay, I can do that. I’ll set the double date for after you get back.”
She’s smiling as she walks away, and I find myself watching her cross the room to her friends.
You know what? She does have a truly remarkable ass—and since she can’t see me looking, I feel no need to stop. I keep my gaze pinned on her until she reaches her friends, who greet her with the kind of enthusiasm my presence rarely musters, even with old friends.
I’m making another effort to leave the room that doesn’t want to let me go when Mick calls my name at the bar and waves me over. He’s there alone, probably because Rob and Travis are with their women. Honestly, a drink sounds pretty good right about now, so I won’t turn him down, if that’s what he has in mind.
“Hey, whatcha got there?” he asks, when I rest my hand on the bar.
I realize with a start that I’m still holding both numbers in my hand. “They’re women’s phone numbers.”
He grins at me and pats me on the back. “Way to go, Corm. You got more game than I thought.”
“One of them belongs to an eighty-year-old woman, and the other is for my stepsister.”
