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I scowl. “He’s not my man.”
“Does he know that?”
“I’d figure so, considering we’re both here dateless.”
Braxton tries and fails to hide her giggle in her husband’s bicep. “She’s going to be beatingyourass instead if you keep arguing with her.”
He smiles sympathetically. “Sorry, Anna, that’s Braxton’s job.”
I scrunch my nose in disgust. “And she can keep it.”
“Maybe he just didn’t tell you he would be here because he was nervous?” Braxton asks.
I want to tell her that that’s most likely not it, but without her knowing the entire story, she wouldn’t understand. Plus, we’re not alone at this table, and even with our voices quiet, I don’t want to risk anyone else overhearing.
“Yeah, maybe,” I reply.
Maddox nods toward the stage, anticipation heavy in his features. “I don’t think you’ll have to wait much longer to find out.”
My muscles stiffen as I drag my eyes back to the platform, this time finding it occupied. I stop breathing when Brody grinsat the wedding guests and waves at the bride and groom. It’s clear there’s a relationship there between them with the ease in which they smile back and the groom pats his chest.
I’ve never been struck stupid by someone’s good looks before, but if anyone were to change that, it would be Brody. It’s almost hard to look at him for too long without risking getting stuck in his trance.So handsome it hurts.It should be a warning given to every person that gets too close.
I’ve grown so used to seeing him in dirty ranch clothes, but today, he’s slipped into a slim-fitting black suit. The top two buttons of his white dress shirt have been left open in an unsurprising way, but it’s the hat on his head that has me trying not to start panting. Instead of his soft brown cowboy hat that I’ve become accustomed to, he swapped it for one so dark brown it’s almost black. It makes his dirty-blond hair stand out, the curls loose and messy beneath it. Even his short beard has grown on me, and I’ve never been a fan of facial hair.
I trail my eyes down his body and stare at the clean boots on his feet, tugging the corner of my mouth up. I don’t know how he managed to convince the bride to allow him to wear those, considering her other crazy outfit rules, but I shouldn’t be surprised. He could convince a nun to sin just for the slight glance at his smile.
The guitar slung around his neck by a plum-coloured strap is a new, refreshing sight. I’ve gotten so used to Brody Steele the rancher/mechanic that sometimes it’s hard to remember he’s also Brody Steele the country star. One of the quickest-growing musicians on the scene right now, to be exact. There’s an entirely new side to him that I have yet to meet, and I guess there’s no prolonging that any longer. It’s now or never.
I flush from my forehead to my toes once I lift my eyes and find him watching me, a little slip of a smirk transforminghis features into something devious. Like he knows something I don’t.
Arching a brow in defiance, I mouth, “You are in trouble.”
That smirk transforms into a smile that’s as close to shy as a guy like Brody is capable of, and then he’s mouthing two words back. “I’m sorry.”
With a twist of his body, his guitar swings from his back to his front. He holds my stare until the lights begin to dim and a spotlight is shone on the bride and groom. Only then does he turn his attention to them. It’s polite in the way someone should be at an event like this, but right now, I don’t feel all that polite. All I want to do is stare at him, and even after the MC announces that the newlyweds are having their first dance, I fall into that desire. I tell myself that I don’t know the couple personally, as if that’s reason enough not to pay them a lick of attention.
The first deep, throaty sound of his voice into the microphone is enough to have me gasping for breath. Plucking lightly at the strings of his guitar, he sings in a tone so soft and warm I want to curl up in it. It’s a comfort like I’ve never known. Or maybe I have, that one time in the stables, so wrapped up in him I couldn’t tell up from down. There was only his smell and warmth and touch and this utterly devastating feeling of rightness.
His singing voice is the equivalent of that. Something that feels an awful lot like coming home.
My body sways to the music, a serenade that I wouldn’t mind having stuck in my mind on replay every day and night. I don’t dare look away from Brody, not for one heartbeat. Finally, when the song trickles to an end, our eyes catch again, and the affection shining so brightly in his is almost too much for my love song–infested brain to comprehend.
One song blends into three, and then the DJ I spotted earlier in the corner of the dance floor takes over—for how long he’ll bein charge, I’m not sure—and the guests join the bride and groom. My sister lays a hand on my wrist a moment after a fast-paced throwback song blasts through the room and whispers gentle words of encouragement that have me already up and out of my chair, searching for the man who is no longer onstage.
My heels clack on the dance floor as I slip past the wedding guests watching and laughing while the groomsmen break into a choreographed dance for the bride. I stifle my own laugh at the terrible coordination before slipping out the side door, back into the hotel lobby.
The duo of security guards chatting a few feet to my right pay me little mind as I begin my search. It’s pleasantly empty out here, as if the bride and groom reserved the entire hotel for their special night. They probably did. Tonight isn’t the night to be interrupted by hockey fans or reporters itching to sell a story toSports Weekly. With Brody here, it probably only made their decision easier. He deserves privacy just as much as they do.
The hotel carpet muffles the sound of my footsteps as I continue down the long stretch of hallway that I hope will lead me to a dressing room of some sort. So far, I’ve only seen a closed hair salon and what I think must be a bridal boutique.
The sign for the bathrooms appears when I turn the corner, but then I’m being tugged toward one of the two bathrooms, a hand on my waist and another wrapped tight around my front. I’m pulled against a hard body, but before panic can sluice through me, I take a deep pull of woodsy cologne and melt in the arms around me.
“This is the second time you’ve grabbed me like this. Some would say that’s a bit of a creepy habit to have,” I say, rolling my lips to hide a smile.
Brody’s chest shakes against my back, his laugh vibrating beneath my skin and damn near into my bones. “Only have a habit of grabbin’ you like this, sweetheart.”
“If you’re trying to suck up right now, you’ve gotta try harder than this.”
