Page 36 of About That Rule

Charlotte eyed her suspiciously before removing her hand from the book. “Well, make sure you remind him to block off the weekend of the reception.”

“Sure thing.” Samantha was ready for a conversation change. “Wait, did you pick out invites? You have to show them to me.”

And just like that, the discussion of Nate was dropped.

IF HE DIDN’Tanswer his phone, she was prepared to leave the message as urgent. Their friends seemed on to her. This was an SOS.

“Hey.” Nate was out of breath when he answered. “What’s up?”

Hmmm, a winded Nate sounded sexy. For a minute, Sam wondered if that was how he talked after sex. He was delicious.

Wait, what was he doing to sound like that?

“Samantha, are you there?” he asked, since she had yet to say anything.

“You sound like you’re in the middle of…something.”

There was a soft chuckle on his end. “Is my wife getting jealous?”

“No,” she answered way too fast.

“Well, rest assured, I’m at the home gym. Everything okay?”

Aside from the embarrassment creeping up on her, maybe. Ugh, she had to focus on the real problem.

“I was with Charlotte and Gabriella today.”

She heard him say goodbye to some people as he left the gym in his apartment building. “Nice. How’s Charlotte with planning a reception? I imagine she’s going spreadsheet crazy.”

“Not as bad as you’d expect. I think Rafe is rubbing off on her.”

“So, she doesn’t have the day planned minute by minute?” Nate asked skeptically.

He had a valid point. “Okay, so she did make color-coded binders for us, but she wasn’t stressed. All in all, it wasn’t bad.”

“Then why do you sound like Doom’s Day is approaching?”

She ran her hand through her hair. “They’re catching on to us.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning they’re asking why I’m going to New York so much to see you. Maybe Gabriella hasn’t picked up on it, but Charlotte gave me the look. Like she isn’t buying my excuse.”

He huffed. “Since when do you need an excuse to see me?”

“Since it’s become so frequent,” she informed him like he should already know. “FYI, I told them I’m visiting because you have tickets to a club opening.”

“A CLUB OPENING? That was the best you could come up with?” He was annoyed she even had to give an excuse to visit him in the first place.

He and Samantha had been close friends since forever. Now, she was pressured to explain why they were hanging out. He didn’t know what was worse: her making up a lie about why she was going to see him or the fact that he was offended by it.

“It’s not too far-fetched. Just a couple months ago, this would have been exactly the type of thing we would have done together,” she explained with a grim voice. “I hate how we have to do this, but what other option do we have?”

Perhaps, tell the truth?

He swiped away that idea immediately. Instead of making their situation worse, he changed the subject to what they were actually doing during her upcoming visit.

But no matter what he did, the nagging thought of would it really be that awful if their friends knew? wouldn’t leave his mind.