I held my hand out. “I don’t know. Probably something for work.”
“‘Where’d you go?’You have the screen preview setting on.” She picked up the device like it was infected, touching as little of it as possible.
My gut twisted, as all of last night flashed through my eyes. But what really knocked the wind out of my chest was the memory of his gently wrapping a towel around me and drying my hair. That moment blurred the lines between sex and other...feelings. I loved it so much, and it left me unbalanced.
“Oh, yeah”—I took it from her, only slightly concerned with the frequency of my lies since she’d walked through the door about five minutes before—”I didn’t send him an email yesterday. We do still work together.”
Visibly shaking herself free of the emotions from the past few minutes, she hung her head. “I’m sorry. I totally jumped to conclusions there. That wasn’t fair of me. I just...I’m really happy to see you not getting hurt by him anymore.”
“You’re fine. I’m okay.” Guilt was a solid rock in the pit of my stomach. “Come on, Mom’s going to kill me for making us late.”
“We did tell you the appointment time was sooner than it actually is. We’ll meet the moms there.”
I rolled my eyes. “I don’t know what’s more annoying: You doing that or me needing the extra time.”
“Both things can be true.”
We made our way to the elevator, lowering our voices in the hallway to not be obnoxious to the other hotel guests. I couldn’t have repeated what we talked about in the elevator ride to the beach entrance of The Brontë, but we were both laughing like we were the two most funny people in the world.
Unlike the day before, the sun was shining when we stepped outside. The little cardigan around my shoulders was a bit too warm for the weather. I raised my face to the sun. Nothing put sunshine into perspective like a Midwestern winter. It felt like I hadn’t seen it in months, I definitely hadn’t felt it’s warmth seep into my skin. Something about it reminded me of Jamison. Maybe it’d been warm the last time we’d hung out in Chicago. Either way it made my body tingle as if his eyes were on me at that exact moment.
The light reflected off the water of the pool, snagging my attention only to discover that he was there. And his eyes were on me.
He had frozen with his towel in his hand at his side. Water dripped down his abdomen and caught in the hair on his chest. His gaze was locked on to me with the intensity of a starving man, and he licked his lower lip. I felt it through my whole body.
Each step took me further from him; the trail led down blocking him from view in incremental amounts. It was only a few seconds, but they stretched—an infinite loop of longing and desire.
And I understood better than I ever had before, what was between me and Jamison was world-shattering. But it would only bemyworld shattered.
Chapter 17
Jamison
“I’ve never done this before.” Derrik’s disembodied voice carried from somewhere to my right, behind the cucumber slices over my eyes.
I lay back on a lounge chair with a cream lathered on my face, and a white robe wrapped across my body. When Mike had suggested a spa visit the morning of the rehearsal dinner, I’d been skeptical. But after a surprisingly strong woman applied a massage to my over-tight muscles for forty-five minutes, I was a believer.
“It’s nice,” I mumbled.
“It was this, hiking, or wine tasting,” Mike explained from his wooden lounge chair between us. Behind us the water wall burbled, and overhead ambient sounds eased from the speakers.
“The spa was the right choice.”
“Words I never thought I’d hear you say.” I could hear the smile in Derrik’s voice, and surprisingly I didn’t find it annoying.
A comfortable silence fell between us. I was definitely more relaxed than I had been in...had I ever been this relaxed?
“Gene’s been more open to new experiences lately,” Mike remarked.
“Really?”
Okay, now Derrik’s voice held an interest that was decidedly irritating.
“Maybe?” I responded. There was a possibility that I was more willing to try things, and if I was completely honest it might have been from the different experiences that Sadie had suggested. I really was willing to do most anything in order to not disappoint her.
The urge to check my phone for a response to my text from a couple hours ago was hard to ignore. I’d almost texted her as soon as I woke up,alone. But then, I’d opened our text message chain and scrolled up to realize just how many times I’d messaged without receiving a reply. The proof of how desperate I’ve been for her was a lot to take in. I might have just come to the realization of my feelings, even if they had been there for a long time, like a candle left to burn all the way down.
I’d set my phone down, grabbed a quick breakfast while only able to think about texting her. Too antsy to stay in my room, I went for a swim. Halfway through laps, I lost my goddamn mind and finally texted her.
