His eyes finished their too-slow perusal of her body, lingering on her slightly parted lips before meeting her gaze. He cleared his throat and looked away.Stop staring at your little sister’s best friend.She’s practically family,he told himself. But the blood rushing to his groin disagreed. Callie was very much not family. Callie was a wet dream come to life. He pulled his shirt on and turned away.
“Sorry,” he mumbled. “Didn’t mean to intrude.”
“You’re not intruding. This is your room, too.”
Behind him, he could hear her moving about the room, unzipping parts of her suitcase. “I’ll just be a minute,” she said to his back. He didn’t turn around again until he heard the bathroom door close.
Noah focused intently on tying the laces of his dress shoes. If he worked hard enough at getting the bow perfectly even then he wouldn’t have room in his brain to dwell on the image of Callie in his mind. The one where she let the edge of the robe slip, let the fabric spill open at the center. The one where he dropped to his knees and licked away the beads of water still clinging to her skin.
What the fuck is wrong with me?
A few minutes later, Callie re-emerged. Her wet hair was pulled back in one of her signature braids, her cheeks still pink—from heat or embarrassment?he wondered. He tried not to notice that beneath her sky-blue sundress she was clearly not wearing a bra, the hard pebbles of her nipples visible through the fabric. Callie rarely wore a bra—and Noah rarely failed to notice.
“Shall we?” she asked, slipping on a pair of nude flats.
They rode the elevator down to the first floor in silence, but Noah’s blood was pounding so hard in his ears he could hardly hear anything anyway. As the elevator doors opened, he reached over and took her hand in his. Because that was the way a boyfriend should behave. Not because he wanted to, or because he needed to touch some part of her or he would go out of his mind and her hand seemed like the most innocuous option. No, this was a handhold of convenience, a handhold of deception. Nothing more.
Everyone else was already seated when they entered the dining room, two places next to each other left open for them. “Sorry we’re late,” Noah said, releasing Callie’s hand with a twinge of regret as they took their seats.
“Now that everyone’s here, we can make introductions,” Liv said.
Most people knew each other, of course, but the three people at the far end of the table were newcomers—Daemon’s friends dropped in the middle of the Van Aller extended-family. Aside from Noah and Callie, and Liv and her fiancé Daemon, there was Liam and Min, his mother and Mrs. Cole.
“This isthePattie McDonald,” Liv said, gesturing across the table to a petite woman with blonde hair. The woman waved, smiling. “Pattie is an absolute icon, and we were so lucky to share the stage with her forChess, both in New York and in London.”
“She also happens to be my oldest friend,” Daemon said with a fond smile.
“Not your oldest, chickadee. Just the one who has put up with you the longest,” Pattie laughed.
“And next to Pattie is her lovely wife, Maggie,” Daemon continued.
“Savior. Saint. And superhero,” Pattie said.
“I’m a public defender,” Maggie explained.
“That’s what I said,” Pattie replied.
“And, last but not least, Daemon’s brother, Jameson,” Liv said, pointing to the man at the end of the table. Not that she really needed to point him out—even in a sea of strangers, there would be no denying the family resemblance between Daemon and the man seated across from him. Same expressive green eyes, same wavy dark hair (though Jameson wore his longer and Daemon’s had far more silver streaked throughout), same square jaw and broad shoulders.
“Call me Jamie,” the younger man said, lifting his water glass in toast to his brother before taking a sip.
“Jamie’s a chef. He has his own restaurant here in town. We’ll be having dinner there tomorrow night.”
“How long have you lived here?” Noah’s mother asked. “I thought your family was from Massachusetts.”
“We are,” Jamie said. “I went to culinary school in Providence and have been in Aster Bay ever since.”
“That’s how we found this place,” Daemon said. “My little brother couldn’t be bothered to take a weekend off to come see us in New York—”
“Weekends are my busiest time,” Jamie protested.
“—so we came up here to see him. And Liv fell in love with the town.”
“Can you blame me?” Liv laughed.
A server appeared to take their drink orders. Liv and Daemon had pre-ordered a set menu for the evening. Noah was grateful for one less thing to think about when his mind was whirling with a sea of self-doubt.
Should he be touching Callie? He wanted to, but did that mean heshould? Would the others think it was odd if he touched her? Or was it weirder if he didn’t? With each passing moment—each joke bandied across the table that he registered half a beat too late—he came to the horrifying realization that he had no idea how to behave with a girlfriend. He knew what to do when he wanted to take a woman home with him, when he wanted her to feel like the sole object of his desire for a few hours. And he knew how to be the big brother, the friend. But he was at a loss of how he was supposed to act when he was in love with someone. Even just for pretend.
