She stretched again and thought about the next two weeks. They needed to take more photos and keep up the momentum on their joint project. She’d need to go to company class every day. They had more wedding prep on their respective lists. And in their spare time, they could do … whatever it was they were doing. Whatever it was Nick had done the other day to make her quads and adductors ache so pleasantly this morning. Her muscles warmed and pulsed at the thought.
She heard footsteps outside the door, and a second later the door swung open and Nick backed into the room with a coffee cup in each hand and a piece of pale blue fabric slung over his shoulder.
“Good morning,” she yawned as he handed her the larger of the two cups. Iced coffee with plenty of milk. He smiled at her, looking surprisingly well rested for someone who’d conducted an extensive semiscientific cocktail study the previous night.
“Good morning. The car’s gassed up. The coffee is strong. And,” he pulled the piece of fabric off his shoulder, “I even found you a spare shirt, in case you really want a change of clothes.”
She smiled back, then took a grateful sip of the coffee. So he hadn’t vanished on a surprise business trip. Quite the opposite, in fact.
“Thank you,” she said, reaching up and pulling the shirt off his shoulder. She unfolded it, then guffawed. LEURAHOUSE, EST. 1907, it said, in flowing teal screen-printed letters, which were surrounded by photographs of half a dozen rearing and racing horses. It was the most impressively ugly thing she’d ever seen.
“Wow.” She couldn’t think of anything else to say.
“Like I said, it’s in case youreallywant a change of clothes.” He grinned. “The front desk guy sent it up for free, because he noticed we came in without any luggage.”
Carly stared at the shirt. “You sure it’s not because he ordered five hundred of these things, and still has four hundred and ninety-nine left?”
“I am not,” Nick replied, and she shook her head, then looked up at him, unable to keep a grin off her face.
“I love it,” she declared. “I’m going to wear it to the wedding. I’m going to wear it on stage. I’m going to wear it in my new head shots when Catherine promotes me.”
“As long as you don’t wear it in any ofmyphotos, that’s fine,” he chuckled, as she threw off the cover and pulled the shirt over her head. “By the way, lots of new followers this morning. And we haven’t even posted yesterday’s shots yet.”
“Nice!” Her phone had died overnight, and suddenly she was in a hurry to get back to Freshwater so she could charge it and see how much progress they’d made. She climbed out of bed and struck a pose in her underwear and T-shirt. “What do you think?”
Nick let his eyes trail over her bare legs and her jutted hip, and then her T-shirt-covered shoulders. He took a slow, thoughtful sip of coffee, a small frown creasing his forehead.
“Well, as Miss Rosemary used to say about some of our costumes, you are a beautiful girl with a beautiful body. And that shirt is doing everything in its power to make it appear otherwise.”
“Rude!” she gasped in mock outrage, flicking the horse head throw pillow at him.
“True!” he gasped back, catching it and pulling hard, reeling her toward him. And then she was pressed against him, up on her tiptoes, hip to hip and nose to nose. She kissed him, tasting coffee and milk, and his tongue met hers gently, carefully, as though they’d woken up and found each other in the sleepy dark. She moaned quietly and tightened her grip on her coffee, but before she could deepen the kiss, he pulled away.
“This place has a pretty early checkout time,” he said, pressing a kiss against her hairline. “And we need to get back.”
“Fine,” she sighed. “But I’m not taking this shirt off.”
Downstairs, the man at the front desk took one look at Carly and his round face split with a wide, delighted grin.
“I told you she’d love it,” he said to Nick, approvingly. Nick smiled back and nodded, seemingly unable to come up with a polite response.
“I do love it,” Carly enthused. “Thank you for sending it up. I can’t wait to wear it in New York City.”
He looked even more pleased at that. “The room is $282 for the night, and that includes taxes,” he said, and Carly swallowed. That hadn’t been in her budget.
“Exchange rate,” Nick murmured from just behind her. “It’s not as bad as it sounds. And we’re splitting it. Fend for ourselves, right?” He pulled his wallet out of his pocket and put his card down on the glossy wooden desk.
“Right,” she squared her shoulders and reached into her bag to get her own wallet. “Fend for ourselves.”
Chapter 19
A week later, Carly’s wedding prep list was down to almost nothing. After their unexpected overnight stay in the mountains, she and Nick had helped Marcus place the bulk liquor order, and over the next few days, they’d picked up tablecloths and napkins, driven to an event-rental warehouse to pick out folding chairs for the ceremony, and gone to a massive hardware store called Bunnings to buy several hundred feet of twinkling lights that the guys had strung all over Heather and Marcus’s backyard.
Last night, they’d recreated the Deep South Manhattan and the Freshwater 75 for Heather and Marcus’s final approval, and today Nick and Marcus were going to the discount liquor store to pick up all the supplies they’d need on the day.
“It’s basically a French 75,” Carly admitted to Heather as they drove over the Harbour Bridge, “but a little pink, like ballet. Trust me, people will love it.” She yawned widely. She’d enjoyed a few too many Freshwater 75s last night and was regretting it this morning. It was Company Day at ANB, meaning that morning class would be taught by a member of the company instead of by a ballet mistress or the artistic director. It was Alice’s turn to teach, and from what Heather had told her, Alice’s classes were no joke. Assuming she was still alive at the end of it, she and Heather had the best wedding errand of all still to run: Heather’s final dress fitting.
Carly had never been the kind of kid who dreamed about their wedding day. She’d never pictured herself in a big white gown or imagined a faceless but presumably handsome man lifting her veil to reveal her shining face. Even now, as her friends coupled up and married off, she didn’t exactly want that for herself. Heather, though, was different. Practical and even keeled as she was, Heather wanted to be married, and she wanted a wedding—one of the reasons, Carly thought, that she’d stayed with Jack for so long. And if Heather wanted a long white gown and a veil and something borrowed and something blue, well, Carly wanted her to have it.
