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“You know how Florida is,” I said. “There are storm warnings practically every day. Even if it rains, it’ll probably only be for half an hour. We can take cover and then come back. They haven’t canceled the event—all these other people are here.”
Conner looked around at the crowd that had started setting up around the grass, seeming to take some comfort from that at least.
“If they cancel, we’ll just go home,” Shani said. “We have the Versace house episode to watch, anyway.”
“See,” I said to Conner. “Silver lining.”
“Not helping,” he said. “And what’s gotten you all jumpy?”
“What? I’m not.”
“You’ve glanced at the parking lot like twenty times. Is it a towaway zone or something? Do I need to move the car?”
“No, it’s just...” I was debating about whether to tell Conner I’d invited Sam out or not. I knew he wouldn’t mind—he seemed to have athe more the merrierapproach to his impending marriage proposal. And he genuinely seemed to like Sam, lack of knowledge aboutMass Effectnotwithstanding. But I didn’t want to tell him and then have Sam not show up. It would be worse than Conner finding out we’d been together in the first place—him finding out that now we weren’t, and I was sad about it.
But then I saw Sam coming over the grass, his hands in his pockets. He was wearing a soft blue T-shirt and jeans, his hair pushed to one side and sticking up in the back, like he’d been running his hands through it. He was scanning the crowd, looking for... me. And when our eyes connected, something in his face eased, and it felt like the fireworks were already starting somewhere behind my rib cage.
“I invited Sam,” I said to Conner quickly, in a low voice. “I figured...”
“Hey,” Sam said, coming up on us. He gave me a smile before turning to Conner. “Phoebe told me you were watching the fireworks from here. Hope you don’t mind if I join you.”
“Not at all, man,” Conner said, gesturing toward the meatsand cheeses already laid out on the blanket. “We brought more than enough to share.”
“Hi, Sam!” Shani said, waving from her spot next to the Brie. Conner was right about how much she loved the stuff. I think half the wheel was already gone and I hadn’t even sat down yet.
“Hey, Shani,” he said, and damned if his eyes didn’t seem to have an extra twinkle to them, aYou don’t even know what’s going down tonight. It was incredibly cute.
I wanted to tell Conner I’d invited Sam there as my... what was the right word? Date? Or would it be better to show, not tell, to reach for Sam’s hand and let them draw their own conclusions?
Except he still had his hands in his pockets, and his body language and the tone of his voice definitely had ajust friendsvibe to them. Did he not know this was a date? Or did he not want it to be, after I’d treated him so shabbily a few days before?
“This weather,” Conner said, giving the sky another worried look, “does not look good. They’re going to cancel, I can just feel it.”
Shani shrugged. “Fireworks are whatever anyway,” she said. “They’re so loud.”
My stomach sank likeIwas the one planning to propose. “I love fireworks,” I said, and now it was my voice that was too loud. Conner gave me a look, likeDial it down. I cleared my throat. “They’re just so... majesty.”
From next to me, Sam choked on a laugh. “Purple mountain majesty?”
“Majestic,”I said. “I meant majestic. Don’t you think so?”
“They’re gorgeous,” he said, his gaze on mine.
Okay, that was it. I was jumping him right here, right now,and I didn’t care about my brother and his soon-to-be-fiancée or the family set up on camping chairs only a few feet away.
But then Sam sank down to sit cross-legged on the blanket, reaching for a slice of prosciutto, and I was left to wonder if I’d imagined that brief moment. By the time I sat down, he was deep in conversation with Shani about a funny story about one of her patients at the hospital, laughing in all the right places.
Conner was looking at his watch. “Shouldn’t they start them early?” he said. “If there’s going to be bad weather later?”
The fireworks weren’t supposed to start until eight thirty, after it had gotten dark. I tried to assure my brother that everything would be fine, but it took all my energy trying to keep his anxiety at bay while also not letting on to Shani that anything was up. I was leaning back on my hands in the grass, watching the sky because I’d promised Conner I would so he could actually talk to the woman he was planning to marry, when I felt a light brush against the back of my hand.
“Hey,” Sam said from next to me. His voice was low, and his thumb slid across my wristbone, sending a shiver through me. “I just wanted to let you know that we’re cool. And we don’t have to tell your brother or anything.”
Was it terrible that the first thing I felt was relief? But after that came confusion, because I really didn’t understand why Sam would be so chill about it all now when he’d seemed upset before. “But I was such a jerk,” I said. “I didn’t even tell you how good the sex was. Which I totally meant to do, by the way, because that whole night...”
I glanced over to see if Conner and Shani were paying any attention to us, but Conner seemed engrossed in feeding Shanimore Brie. Reason number eighty-five why I thought it would’ve been better without me here.
“A-plus,” I finished. “Definitely.”
