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“Can I see you in my office before dinner, gentlemen?” Charles says mid-wedding conversation.
Cameron hops up like he was expecting the question. Carter and Chance are slower to rise, both giving kisses to their respective brides—Carter on Luna’s forehead, and Chance to Samantha’s lips, which he then rubs a thumb over with a raised brow. The look that passes between them is hotter than a volcano.
Cole sighs heavily as he squeezes my hand. He doesn’t want to leave me, but I’ll be fine. It’s not like his family is going to behave worse than mine. I’m in no danger of attack, verbal or physical. Or at least I don’t think I am, so I smile up at him encouragingly as he stands. Besides, this’ll give me a chance to move deeper into phase one of my plan.
“Got your bear spray in your purse?” he teases straight-faced.
“Yep. My aim’s dead-on too,” I reply with a smile because we both know that’s not true in the slightest.
When the guys leave, Miranda stands too. “Gracie-girl, let’s go check on dinner. I want to make sure we’ve got your dinosaur nuggets in the oven.”
The child doesn’t look up from the iPad, but she must’ve heard because she robotically stands and somehow follows Miranda from the room without bumping into a single piece of furniture or wall.
Which leaves me with Luna, Samantha, and Kayla. And given the way they’re looking at me, I’m woefully unprepared for this conversation. Maybe I really should’ve brought my bear spray? If not for protection, I could hand them out like party favors and maybe then they’d like me?
“It’s okay, we don’t bite,” Luna reassures me with a smile that reaches her eyes, which are behind thick, black frames that give her a slightly nerdy vibe.
Samantha scoffs. “Speak for yourself, girl. Chance has teeth marks on his ass as we speak.” My eyes shoot open wide in shock, and she adds, “But I only bite him. For the most part. He likes it that way.”
Luna swats her arm and scolds, “Don’t scare her.”
Samantha shrugs, unbothered by the reproach. “Just being honest. Sometimes, you gotta be quiet and the only thing to muffle a cry is your own arm. And a little bitey-bite is perfectly normal and natural behavior that calls back to our primal natures.”
“Ladies,” Kayla snaps, “we’ve got limited time before they all get back.”
Luna and Samantha understand Kayla perfectly, and all three turn back on me with single-minded focus. They’ve seemed nice all evening, but Cole’s request for no-interrogation went null and void as soon as Miranda left in a quest for the perfect dino nuggie, and we all know it.
“What do you want to know?” I ask, figuring I might as well face this head-on. Cole said his family doesn’t really know him, and this is my chance to help with that and show them that he’s really a great guy. Mostly.
“Everything,” Luna admits on a long exhale. “Start with how you met.”
Samantha nods, pointing at Luna like ‘yeah, what she said’, so I explain the bear spray joke Cole made. “I thought he was a bear at first, so I had protection. But finding a strange man in your cabin in the middle of nowhere was even worse than a grizzly, so I sprayed him. Well, I tried to, but it kinda went pffft.” I show the arc the spray took, falling to the floor unsuccessfully. “He chased me, my towel fell off so I was butt-ass naked—I know that’s not the expression, but that’s how I said it as a kid and it stuck, so I always say it like that. Anyway, I ran into the bathroom and locked myself in. He was yelling at me, banging on the door like he was gonna rip it off the hinges because he thought I broke in. Turns out, we were both wrong and there was a mix-up in the bookings. He offered to pay for my vacation if I would let him use the shower every night, which I thought was super generous, so I said we could share the cabin.” I tell the whole saga in one breath, the women all hanging on my every word, and finish with a shrug like that’s a perfectly normal meet-cute story.
“Did you get all that?” Luna asks out of the side of her mouth, her eyes never leaving me. Kayla nods in answer, and Luna adds, “I feel like I should’ve recorded all that so I could play it back in slow motion or something.”
“You get used to it,” I assure her. “Cole likes when I ramble.”
Luna fights a smile as she whispers, “I bet. Someone’s got to carry the conversational load.”
“Huh, you said load,” Samantha laughs, but almost instantly, she groans, “Oh, God, I’m spending way too much time with twenty-year-old boys, aren’t I? That was awful.”
