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I exhaled hard, my stomach swirling with nervousness. Sitting in a hot tub with Holt? Other people or not, that sounded downright dangerous.
“You can hot tub anytime,” Grady said. “Get in right now if you want to.”
Harry started to stand up, but Bess said, “No thank you. We’re too old for swimsuits.”
The other women in the wedding party arrived and got drinks. One of them, Carmen, immediately made a beeline for Holt. I couldn’t watch another woman flirting with him, so I went into the kitchen to work on some snacks I had packed for Grady to bring.
I’d prechopped a bunch of veggies and bagged them up. I arranged them on a huge platter and added meats, cheeses, grapes and crackers.
I heard the sliding glass doors from the deck to the house open when I was searching the refrigerator for the dips I made.
“Hey,” a deep voice said. “Let me help with that.”
It was Holt, his presence making my pulse pound.
“It’s okay, I can do it. I just need to find these dips. Maybe I should get out some more crackers. That doesn’t look like enough.”
“Shea.” He walked over and set his beer on the kitchen counter.
“Hmm?” I busied myself searching for the dips.
He came closer, not stopping until he was right next to me and my heart was beating so hard I was sure he’d be able to see it from the outside.
“You’ve been avoiding me. Did I say something to offend you?”
I gaped at him. “No, I’ve just been busy.”
“Shea...”
“There it is!” I took the container of olive dip out of the fridge. “Now I just need to find the dish I packed to serve it in.”
I didn’t want to have this conversation with Holt. My feelings were a tangled mess, and I didn’t want things to get even more awkward when we were here together for an entire weekend.
“Hey there,” Carmen said, grinning at Holt as she opened the sliding glass doors and walked in. “Some of us are getting in the hot tub. You should put on your suit and join us.”
I exhaled through my nose. Not only did I have to spend this whole weekend with Holt and pretend I didn’t have feelings for him, but I also had to watch Carmen Thompson blatantly trying to reel him in.
“I’d rather hang out with Shea,” Holt said.
“Sure, just come out whenever,” Carmen said.
I turned to face Holt. “Hey, you don’t have to—”
He covered my lips with his fingertips. “I’m here because I want to be.”
His touch sent a bolt of sensation to my lips, making me break out in goose bumps. My eyes were locked on his, unable to look at anything else until the sound of people coming in made me jolt.
He dropped his hand and I cleared my throat, putting olive dip into a serving dish.
“Hey, I’m putting out snacks if anyone’s hungry,” I said.
“Ooh, that looks amazing,” Allie said, grabbing a carrot from the tray. “What can I do to help?”
“Nothing at all.”
“Hey,” Grady said, pointing at me from across the room. “Remember what I told you—you aren’t feeding and cleaning up after us this weekend.”
I put my hands up in mock surrender. “I know! You vetoed the meals I wanted to make. At least give me a few snacks, for crying out loud. And one breakfast.”
