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“It’s been a long week,” I lie easily and offer her a small smile.
“It’s only Tuesday,” she replies with a grin of her own.
“Isn’t that a pisser?” That makes her laugh, and my stomach clenches into a tight ball. Everything about Sid is a one-two punch. Her laugh, her gorgeous blue eyes, and her body with curves for days have been the star of my dreams since I first met her at my sister’s wedding last year.
Having her so close to me, knowing that I can’t touch her or have her, is its own special form of torture.
But, with the goal of not hurting her feelings at the forefront of my mind, I laugh with her.
“It’s okay,” she continues as she finally takes a bite of her fish and follows it up with a sip of her cocktail. “I’ve had a crappy few months, so I get how it is.”
“Why has it been a bad few months?” I suddenly want to hear everything she has to say.
She lifts her left shoulder, the one that’s not currently covered by fabric because her sweatshirt slid off and she left it exposed.
There’s no bra strap, which tells me she’s bare under that sweatshirt, and I remember exactly how her full breasts feel in my hands.
“Work.” She takes another sip of her drink, looking around the table as if she’s making sure they’re all too caught up in their own conversation to listen in on ours. “The tour didn’t do well. The album did worse. When I got home, my agent informed me that the label wasn’t going to renew my contract.”
The last few words are said in a whisper, and I have the intense, immediate desire to punch out the idiot who made the decision to let her go at the record company.
“I’m sorry, Sid.” I reach under the table, where the others can’t see, and pat her thigh. “They’re idiots. The tour was awesome.”
Her head whips around in surprise, and her eyes widen as she stares up at me. “How do you know?”
“I went with the others.” I shrug as if it’s no big deal.
“You were there, too?”
“Sure.”
I glance down and see her swallow hard.
“I didn’t know that,” she says at last.
“I had a great time. You put on a hell of a show, so whoever the idiot is that decided to cut you loose is a first-rate moron.”
That makes her smile again. “Thanks. It’ll all work out, and in the meantime, I have a break to rest and regroup, you know?”
“Sure. That makes sense.”
“Keaton, you haven’t even so much as sipped that drink,” Stella says, frowning at me from across the table. “Did I make it wrong?”
“Oh, sorry.” I pick up the highball glass and sip the old-fashioned that Stella made for me. She knows it’s my favorite. “That hits the spot, Stell.”
“If you don’t like it, I can remake it.”
“Nope, it’s great. Dinner’s good, too.”
“I brought a chocolate cake for dessert,” Olivia announces to us all. “Because I’ve been craving chocolate like crazy.”
“I’ll never turn that down,” Sidney replies. “When do we get to talk about wedding dresses?”
“Now,” Stella decides as she stands and clears her plate from the table. Liv and Sidney join her, and they quickly cut three big pieces of cake before they hustle out of the room and down the hall, where the menfolk can’t eavesdrop.
Not that we want to.
“We forgot the drinks,” Liv announces as she comes running back into the room. She bypasses the dining room, heads for the kitchen, then runs back the way she came, carrying a shaker full of fresh cocktails. “See you later!”
“Stella’s been excited about this all day,” Gray says as he stands and begins to clear the other dishes from the table.
Vaughn and I follow suit, helping him with the dishes.
“She’s finally getting excited about the wedding thing,” Vaughn says. “She texts or calls Liv about it all the time.”
Gray nods as he opens the dishwasher. “I don’t think it was that she wasn’t amped up about the wedding before. There’s just been a lot going on with the family lately, with other engagements, weddings, and football games thrown in.”
“It’s been a busy year,” I agree and sip my drink. “But we all want Stella to have the wedding she wants. She shouldn’t have to feel like she has to put it off just because we have a busy family. That’s never going to change.”
“I finally convinced her of that,” Gray says with a nod. “So, we’re moving forward with it. The way things are going, there might just be more than one wedding a year for a while, given how big the Montgomery and Williams family is.”
“They’re all dropping like flies,” Vaughn agrees, then turns to me with a half smile.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
