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Somebody needed to referee before this got out of hand. I patted her shoulder and silently gave thanks I’d missed that adventure. “Well you can all relax. I’m picking the music this weekend.” I gestured toward the speakers where “Come Monday” by Jimmy Buffett had been on repeat since I’d arrived.
Vivian punched me in the arm.
“Anything is better than three hours of—” Daniel began.
Vivian shoved her finger into his chest. “Don’t you dare say it. Madonna is awesome. It should remind you of our first date.”
“Believe me, it does.” He wrapped his hand around her finger and lowered it.
“There were controls for the radio in the back seat, but you chose to just sit there and complain instead…for three hours.” Her voice echoed in the otherwise peaceful afternoon.
Daniel’s jaw ticked. “You locked them.”
“I did no such thing.”
Hell, this argument was going in circles. Time for a change of subject.
“Hope it’s all right, but I brought the food for the weekend. Something I know you’re gonna like.”
My granddaddy had shipped a brisket to me when I’d mentioned I was coming to Mammoth Lakes for the holiday. Guess I hadn’t been able to stop talking about my new friends, and my family wanted to help me keep them around.
Neither of them looked in my direction, so maybe my attempt to defuse this situation wasn’t working so well.
“You absolutely did.” Daniel spoke to Vivian in a lethal tone as if I hadn’t said a word. The two of them were in a stare-off for the ages.
“What are you going to do about it?” she challenged, and I looked toward the sky for guidance.
“I’ll show you.” He grabbed her hand and took off toward the house.
Now that they’d moved, the vision I hadn’t been able to get off my mind for months, and the real reason I was here, appeared. Muriella stood near the back door, stick straight, a look on her face that was some combination of worry and anticipation as she watched her friends leave the room.
My pulse kicked up. I’d met thousands of people since the movie premiered, yet hers was the face I’d wanted to see. The first time we met, my reaction had been strong. I’d felt an irrational jealousy of the kinky relationship I thought she had going on with her friends along with a totally unjustified sense of possessiveness toward her. I wasn’t that guy. But with her, it seemed I was.
My ass should’ve booked a flight to Texas as soon as I’d found out I had Labor Day weekend off. Instead, my first thought had been of her. How I could see her again. When I’d picked up the phone to feel things out with Daniel, I’d been fully prepared to have to go to New York. When he and Vivian had jumped on the idea of coming out to California, I’d fist-pumped the air.
This weekend I planned to find out if my reaction to Muriella was a fluke, something I’d cooked up in my head to be more than it was. And if there was more to it, maybe take this thing a step forward, see if the interest was at all mutual.
So far, she was everything I remembered and then some. I hadn’t seen or spoken to her since July, yet a sense of familiarity pulled me toward her. She held her breath when I got close.
“Hello, darlin’.”
She fiddled with the hem of her shirt. “Hi.”
“Rough ride?”
Her gaze darted through the open sliding glass door. “Not the best,” she admitted.
Finally, her eyes met mine. Nothing had changed since the last time I’d seen her. Except I felt her, right in my gut, even more.
“There’s something for you in that cooler.” I motioned toward the camo green Coleman, a little piece of Texas I’d brought with me to California. “I could use something to take the edge off myself.”
She skirted past me and lifted the lid, giving me an odd look.
I tugged on my ball cap. “That’s the kind you like, right?”
“Yes.” She spoke with a little bit of wonder as she lifted the champagne bottle up by the neck. “Would you open it, please?”
I popped the cork and poured her a glass, our fingers brushing when I handed it to her. She jumped, some of the liquid splashing out. She smoothed her reaction with a soft smile and wandered over toward the deck railing. I sidled up next to her, leaning my forearms on the railing, beer dangling from my fingers.
