“I told Slater that I was missing my spin classes and…”
“You know we have a gym here at the resort, right? You’re more than welcome to use it.”
“That’s what Slater said, but it’s not the same when you’re biking alone. So he said there were a couple of bikes in the storage shed, and we pulled them out and biked along the path to the construction site.” She paused and took a sip of the water their server had put out for them. “You guys should investigate having a bike path. I think guests would really enjoy it.”
“Ooh…that does sound fun,” Nora agreed. “Next group dinner, we should talk about that.”
“I’m not sure where we’d…”
“Hey! Look who’s back!”
Evie looked up and saw Slater standing next to the table, and her heart raced like wild. She hadn’t planned on seeing him until much later—she knew she needed time to get her emotions under control—and now here he was in the flesh.
Covered flesh, but still.
“Hey!” Milo stood and shook Slater’s hand. “Have you had lunch yet? Why don’t you join us?”
“Thanks!” He slid into the booth beside Evie, thigh to thigh, and she had to try very hard not to react. Turning his head, he looked at her with a sly wink. “Hey, Evie. How’s your day going?”
“Good,” she said, her voice cracking slightly, causing her to clear it. “Good, thanks.”
“I appreciate you taking good care of Evie this weekend,” Milo said. “I’m sure she would have been fine hanging out here alone and exploring or relaxing, but it was nice of you to hang out with her.”
“It was my pleasure,” he said, and Evie almost groaned. “So, what are we talking about?” He rested his arm along the back of their seat, making it almost look like his arm was around her, and again, she had to try super hard not to react.
“The amphitheater. Evie said the two of you went to see it and ran into Reece,” Milo replied.
“Slater,” Nora quickly interrupted. “Don’t you think it would be awesome to fix Evie and Reece up? I think they’d be perfect together, don’t you?”
“Um…”
“Nora,” Milo quietly said. “She already said she wasn’t interested. Stop pushing.”
She huffed. “Ugh. Fine.”
Beside her, Slater shifted a bit, his hip gently bumping hers. “Everything’s coming along great over there,” he told Milo. “I think they’re making decent progress now that the weather’s cooperating. I don’t know about them being done for Memorial Day weekend, though.”
“He assured me it would. Lexi’s working on booking all the entertainment, so I have to have faith that we’ll launch on schedule.”
The two of them talked back and forth, but she felt Nora’s eyes on her.
“What else did you guys do in the city?” she forced herself to ask. “Where’d you eat?”
For the next few minutes, Nora told her all about the places they’d seen—from touristy stuff like the Brooklyn Bridge and Rockefeller Center, to eating hot dogs and pretzels for lunch and then dinner at Tavern on the Green. Her entire face lit up as she talked, and Evie was glad they’d had such a good time, but she secretly wished they had stayed away longer.
“Evie and I have a busy week ahead of us,” she heard Milo saying.
“We do?”
He nodded. “Now that things are tentatively set up, I need for us to work on what our days are going to look like moving forward. You’re going to be in Seattle, I’ll be here, there’s the time difference…the logistics of you and I working together is going to take some strategic planning.”
All she had time to do was nod before their server was back to take their orders. Once they were done, Milo was about to pick up where he left off when his phone rang.
“Excuse me. I need to take this,” he said as he got up and walked out of the restaurant.
Nora slid out of the booth too, “Don’t mind me. I’m going to be nosy and see who that was. We’re waiting on a call from Swati about a rental house.”
“Take your time,” Slater casually said, but as soon as Nora was gone, he turned and looked directly at her. “What are the odds the two of them lock themselves in Milo’s office and don’t come back?”
