He laughs, deep and full. “Of course you do. I told you it’s the best.”
We eat in comfortable silence, sharing a beer, but what he doesn’t know is that I do think he’s the guy I’ll love, and it’ll last forever. But where’s the fun in letting the cat out of the bag?
If I’ve learned anything from the great romances over time, it’s that timing is everything. So the day I know I love Chase Beckett will be the day someone will have to rip him out of my cold, dead hands.
Chase
We’re walking hand in hand back to the car after a mic drop lunch. And not just because the food was good. I told her I was falling in love with her ...
It’s too fast, but I didn’t even know it before I said it.
But the minute it tumbled out, I knew I meant it.
I think I’ve genuinely liked her for so long and fallen so hard that all it took was her finally giving me a chance to have all the feelings hit hard.
I smile at my beautiful girl as she points to a building off in the distance, talking about some famous murder that happened there.
I’m nodding, about to ask a question, when my attention’s stolen by the gathering momentum in the distance.
A car alarm.
My brows draw together as she rattles off something wild.
I know it’s wild because she always talks with her hands when she gets excited. But I’m still only half listening because I’m looking over in the direction where I’m parked.
That better not be my car.
“Dang, someone’s car’s going off,” she says casually before going back to her story, and then her eyes get big. “That’s not yours, is it? Because aren’t we parked over there?”
I slow down and lift my keys, having thought the same thing. I click the alarm icon on my car fob. Unfortunately for someone else, the sound continues.
“Not mine,” I say back to her, smiling.
My phone dings in my back pocket, then again and again ... and again.
“What is happening?” she laughs, lifting her brows at me.
I chuckle, letting go of her hand to pull my phone free. “The girls are doing an F1 driving experience. I have a feeling I’m getting pics.”
She shakes her head. “Break this down for me ... because I wholeheartedly believe you about them, because strangely it’s on brand for you, but like—”
I throw my arm over her shoulder so that the phone is closer to her face, my messages open, a group photo of them on the screen.
“Right after theFriday the 13thof it all,” I breathe out as she glances up at me, “I went through a dark time. I did a lot of really impulsive shit. I think I was trying to remind myself I was alive and in control. Anyway, one of those things was skydiving.”
Evie’s scrolling through the pictures of us on the plane, smiling.
“That’s where I met my ladies.”
She snuggles in closer to me, clearly loving this, pointing to the first name that’s popped up as we weave between cars.
“Tell me about Birdie.”
“Ohh, well.” I tilt my head with a grin. “Birdie, or Roberta as her driver’s license says, had ten husbands in her lifetime. All of them now deceased, and three of them named Patrick.”
“Birdie has a type,” Evie teases, and I nod.
“And Gail?”
