As they ate, the conversation dropped from her and Rhys and ranged from what color highlights Scarlett should try in her hair to which books had plot twists that still stunned this collective group of brilliant women.
Aaliyah, Yasmin, and Abigail would like them too. Jules missed them. The first pang of homesickness hit her chest.
Scarlett groaned and held up her phone to Jules. Sloane’s wall of text messages blanketed her screen.
Jules blocked the phone with her hand. “I don’t want to see anything about Mason.”
“He’s Retire Guy, right?” Scarlett asked.
“You need a better name than Retire Guy,” Alicia said.
“My sister agrees,” Jules said and finished her last bite. Given Sloane’s messages to Scarlett, Jules guessed Mason’s FBI interview had leaked. She imagined that the same gossip site that had broken the news about Mason cheating now proclaimed he was the diabolical brains behind her harassment campaign.
Rhys walked over with Callum and two other men, and Callum lifted Grace into his lap and arranged her against his chest. Rhys introduced the other men as Eli and Decker then rested his arm on her glider, as he had before. This was apparently as close as they could get without crossing the line and making Vivian’s head explode.
That was fine. She didn’t want him to lose his job, but whoa, the urge to crawl into his arms like Callum was holding Grace took a huge amount of energy to ignore.
“You ready to get out of here?” Rhys asked as if reading her mind then gave their peanut gallery a quick appraisal. “We didn’t get in until the middle of the night.”
“Yeah, I’m exhausted. Thanks for having me over.”
Grace and Callum graciously accepted their reason to beg off.
Alicia did not. She hummed. “Does she look tired or… something else?”
“Don’t mind her.” Grace kicked at her friend’s shin. “While you’re here, come over any time. With or without him.” She nodded to Rhys. “We’ll do a girls’ day. Alicia’s here for the next few days.”
“We’re trying to convince Alicia to move here,” Scarlett added, batting her eyelashes before returning her attention back to Jules. “Maybe we’ll work on you next.”
Rhys frowned.
Her stomach churned. She hadn’t suggested moving here. She wouldn’t uproot her life for a man. Maybe a break from acting would be nice, but she’d never follow a man who hadn’t asked her to.
Did Rhys think that was what they’d been discussing? Did he worry she was trying to complicate their situation?
Then again, he’d said she was his. What the hell did that mean? In bed? In general?
He called for his dog with a quick snap, and Clyde galloped toward him. They walked around the house. Clyde veered toward the truck, and Rhys dropped the tailgate. His dog sailed onto the bed. Then he caught Jules, snagging her by the waist, and lifted her onto the truck.
Rhys positioned between her knees and draped her hands on his shoulders.
Darting her eyes toward the Hales’ house, she dropped her hands away. Rhys grabbed them again, moving them back to his shoulders with a squeeze as though he could glue them in place.
“Someone’s going to see us.”
“You gave me a look,” he said.
Heat infused her cheeks. A bad look? A good one? Apparently, a look that made him push between her legs. So, a handy look. Her heart fluttered. “No, I didn’t.”
“You did. And…” He cupped her chin, holding her face so that she had to look directly at him. “And I really liked it.”
“That doesn’t mean your boss can see us together like this.”
“Right now, that’s a chance I’m going to take.” He caressed her cheek with his thumb. “We have two options. One: I run by my place and pick up Clyde’s food before we go back to the housewe stayed at. Or two: we grab your luggage, and you come home with me. I have a preference.”
“You do?”
“I want you in my bed. In my house.”
