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“So is yours,” I told her, flicking the rubber appendage with one finger before we both burst out laughing. “I’m fine. I’m happy tonight.”
“Really? That’s great. I want everybody to be happy. I want everybody to feel as good as I do right now.” She threw her arms around me in an impulsive hug that I gladly returned. I finally had a sister.
I didn’t know if I’d ever feel as good as she did, but I wouldn’t bring her down with that when she was glowing and radiant, only two days from her wedding. Nobody needed to be burdened with my history and the way it insisted on ruining my present.
Olivia came back from a secretive conversation with the boat’s captain, who changed the music playing through the speakers. What was a bouncy, upbeat song turned to something with a slower, sexy rhythm. “Why should the boys have all the fun?” she asked before the door leading below deck opened, and two gorgeous, chiseled men climbed up on deck and began moving to the music.
“Oh my God!” Lourde squealed and clapped her hands while Pepper pulled out her phone to take a video.
“There she is!” Pepper pointed to Lourde. “There’s the bride-to-be!”
“Why did you do this?” Lourde shouted over the music before being sandwiched between two rock-hard, writhing bodies. She could barely breathe laughing so hard, and it only got louder when they started peeling off their shirts to reveal the ridiculously defined muscle underneath.
“Don’t ask questions! Just enjoy yourself!” It was all in good fun. Even I had to giggle at the way her face went a deeper shade of red every time one of the men brushed against her.
“Hey, there’s a single lady on this boat!” Olivia was smiling wide when she turned my way and pointed to me.
“Oh, no, no.” I waved both hands, slightly horrified. “I’m not the bride-to-be! This is all about her!”
Somehow, Pepper took hold of me and dragged me to the middle of the deck, where the guys started dancing close to me. I was mortified… sort of. A little bit. But not as much as I would’ve been while sober. In fact, the warmth in my veins loosened me up enough that when they sandwiched me between them, I swung my hips to the music and hollered the way the rest of the girls did. Because why not? This was a night for celebrating. It was time to start living a little. Having fun. Learning to be a whole person instead of letting the past hold me back.
And celebrate, I did. I celebrated so hard, in fact, that by the time we docked in tandem with the guys’ boat, the world was a little spinny, and I wasn’t sure if it was me or the boat that was unsteady.
“Holy shit!” Connor was in stitches once we met up on the dock, all of us still wearing our accessories. “Gorgeous, ladies. Classy too.” The rest of the men clapped and laughed at our silliness before claiming their women one by one.
“There is nothing classy about a bachelorette party.” Pepper wound her arms around Connor’s neck and kissed him deeply, so deep a wave of longing threatened to knock me into the water.
What would it be like loving somebody so openly, without any fear of being looked at or judged?It was the sort of question I had been asking myself for years without knowing it. Wondering when my time would come—if ever. The possibility was looking less likely all the time.
I was so busy brooding that I took a wrong step and got the heel of my shoe stuck between two wooden planks. “You’re killing me,” I grumbled, bending unsteadily to fix it and making my headband slide down over my eyes. “Who turned out the lights?”
“Here. Let me help you.” All of a sudden, there was a hand on my waist, steadying me. My vision cleared in time to see Magnus working my heel out from between the planks. “That’s all we need. A bridesmaid in a cast because there was a dick in her eyes, and she couldn’t see straight.”
“Ha. Ha. Funny,” I retorted with a half snort, caught off guard by the sound and slightly mortified. At the same time, there was no convincing me my heart didn’t skip a beat at his touch and his sudden nearness. He was close enough that I could smell his cologne along with the liquor on his breath.
“You girls obviously had a good time.”
“It was a blast,” I confessed as we walked together.
Mangus kept his hands to himself but reached out like he wanted to steady me when I wobbled a little. “Maybe the heels weren’t a great idea.”
“Do you need me to carry you back?” Magnus asked, and I blurted out a disbelieving laugh at the thought, but he wasn’t laughing. “I mean it. If you’re having a hard time…”
“I’ll be fine.” That came out a little too sharply, so I added, “Thanks, though. So, what about you boys? I bet you got up to all kinds of mischief.”
“Not really. We did a lot of drinking, played cards, and bullshitted.”
“You sound disappointed.”
He smiled—wide, genuine, and much too dazzling for my poor, lonely heart to handle. A heart that skipped a beat when he shown that smile on me. “Do I? I tried not to show it.”
We were alone by the time we reached the hotel lobby. Everybody else had already dispersed, heading to their rooms for the sort of fun that required a little privacy. “You’re the lone wolf now,” I observed with a wry grin. “Nobody would’ve messed around on their girls.”
He stroked his stubbled jaw before shrugging. “Yeah. It’s no fun being cheated on.” He spoke as though he knew from experience. That was preposterous to imagine. Who in their right mind would cheat on him?
It had to be the champagne working its magic on me. There was no way the legendary Magnus Miller was opening up and acting like a normal person. He showed me a little bit of himself earlier, during dinner, and maybe that left him feeling more comfortable. Or maybe it was everything he’d had to drink since the odor of liquor practically oozed from his pores.
Somehow, even that was sexy, just like everything else about him.
