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As much as I want to throw myself headfirst into the giddy romance of it all, I can’t forget the reason we met. I’m a date-for-hire… Because Charlie didn’t want to risk anything remotely approaching commitment with his plus-ones for these weddings. I was supposed to be a no-strings, zero drama solution to his bachelor problem. And now?
Now I want this summer to last forever.
I should have known.
Olivia even warned me this might happen, the
heady romance of it all, and boy, was she right. Because if Charlie wasn’t tempting enough on his own, here we are with night after night of speeches about true love, with Ella Fitzgerald crooning while Charlie spins me on the dance floor, and everybody sighing over True Love and Happily Ever After.
I try not to let the ambiance tug on my heartstrings. I try to hold my ground.
But there’s a reason it’s called getting swept off your feet.
* * *
“I’m never gettingout of this bed,” I sigh in satisfaction at the end of another week of whirlwind weddings. We’re at Charlie’s place, which of course is five times the size of mine: A chic loft space in the East Village that reminds me of Mavericks with all the exposed brick and cool steel girders. “These sheets are incredible.”
“What about the guy naked in them with you?” Charlie asks, pretending to look outraged.
“I guess he’s not so bad, either.” I grin. I luxuriate in the crisp linen. Dammit, but he’s just raised the bar way too high for the men of New York. There I was being impressed by a bed frame and matching pillows, and now I have this setup to contend with. “As long as he keeps me occupied.”
I reach over, and pull him to me for a sweaty, post-coital kiss.
“Not for much longer, if we’re going to make it on time tonight,” Charlie says, pulling back.
Ah. Tonight.
I wince.
“We don’t have to go,” Charlie reminds me, picking up on my reluctance.
I sigh. “And have them think I care so much I can’t face them? No way.”
It’s Nadia and Miles’ wedding tonight, and I’m recoiling at the thought of it. Yes, it will be awkward and painful. But the alternative—letting everyone know how completely the happy couple crushed me—is not acceptable.
“Or…” Charlie says, drawing me closer, “We take a red-eye to somewhere tropical instead. I’ll snap a picture of you in a bikini, sipping a mai tai, and you can post it.”
I laugh. “Tempting, but nope.”
“Why not?” he asks, nuzzling at my neck.
“Ditching the wedding and posting some revenge photo would look like I’m out to prove something,” I tell him.
“But aren’t you?” he asks. “By going in the first place?”
I whip a pillow at him, which he dodges. “Don’t bring logic into this bedroom before I’ve had my coffee. I am being the bigger person, dammit.”
Charlie grins, wrestling me into the covers. “You are… Almost always the smaller person.”
“Oh, wow. Are you trying to get kicked out of your own bed?”
He braces himself above me, his larger body bracketing mine. “You want to kick me out of bed?”
“Maybe,” I say, clinging to my pride and my poker face. From somewhere close, his phone buzzes. He leans down to press a kiss to my neck.
“Maybe?” he repeats. His mouth trails down to my collarbone. The phone buzzes again.
“I’ll kick that phone out of your bed,” I say, breathless.
