“I’ve noticed.” He studies my face like he’s memorizing it. “You look beautiful.”
“I look half-finished.”
“You look like you.” He kisses my forehead. “That’s always beautiful.”
My heart stutters.
After I finish up, we head down to enjoy a meal with my sister and her soon-to-be-hubby at the resort’s cozy dining spot—the kind of place that is intimate and you can hear yourself think. Not the formal venue reserved for tomorrow’s rehearsal dinner. Just the four of us, the way Chris suggested.
There’s something suspicious about watching Julian Blackthorne pretend to eat a breadstick.
He’s perfected the art, I’ll give him that. The casual tear. The thoughtful pause before the not-quite-bite. The way he moves pieces around his plate like he’s conducting a symphony of carbohydrates without ever letting any of them touch his lips. I’ve been tracking this since our first dinner in Santa Monica.
Things Julian Doesn’t Do: Eat. Drink coffee while it’s hot. Sweat, even when the tropical humidity has me melting.
Normal boyfriend stuff, right?
Across the table, Violet is recounting a surgical horror story with the kind of enthusiastic hand gestures that suggest she’s forgotten we’re eating. Chris has gone green. Julian looks genuinely fascinated, which is either excellent acting or a bit concerning.
“—and then the resident looks at me,” Violet continues, brandishing her fork like a scalpel, “white as the walls, and says, ‘Dr. Gable, I think I may have left the clamp inside.’”
Chris chokes on his wine. “Inside the patient?”
“Inside the patient.”
“What did you do?”
“I said, very calmly, very professionally, ‘Well, you’d better go get it then.’” Violet grins at Chris’s horror. “Of course, I was screaming inside. Like one of those horror movie screams.”
Julian laughs.
Not the polished chuckle I heard him deploy at the cocktail party. This is different. Genuine and warm. His face transforms into something younger.
I forget how to breathe.
He catches me staring. One eyebrow lifts. “What?”
“Nothing.” I grab my wine. “Just enjoying the show.”
“The show?”
“You. Being a person.” I gesture at his face as his eyebrows raise and his mouth drops. “It’s nice. You should do it more often.”
“Huh, I’m always a person.” He says, and then winks at me.
“Yes. But you’re always performing a person. There’s a difference.” I take a sip, watching him over the rim. “I should know. I do the same thing. I like this new you.”
“It is different,” he says quietly, pitched just for me. “You make me different.”
Under the table, he grabs my hand as he stares at me with that type of stare that means things could be getting R-rated—or at least, PG-13—soon.
Violet clears her throat. “Should Chris and I leave? Get a room, already! Oh, yeah, you already do, so maybe you two could pick this up later?”
“Shut up.” But I’m smiling. Can’t help it.
“I think it’s sweet,” Chris says, watching us with an expression I can’t quite read. “You two. The way you are with each other.”
“How are we with each other?” I ask.
