“Those roads were dangerously narrow when they were dry. You think we’d get home fine in a foreign country in the pouring rain?”
“It’s notpouringrain.”
As if on cue, a loud clap of thunder cracks. A girl next to us jumps in her seat at the sound, sloshing red wine in her glass.
“How are we supposed to drive home in this? We’ll never be able to see.”
Reid finally breaks his stare from me to look out the window and acknowledge the unexpected weather. The only sign of worry on his handsome face is his lips pressing into a thin line as he thinks.
“We can just wait for it to pass.”
“I’m afraid it’s not going to pass anytime soon,” Celeste says behind us. “You may have to wait it out here for quite some time.”
“How much time?” Reid asks.
“It’s supposed to continue for most of the evening.”
I turn to look at her with embarrassingly wide eyes. Dread pools in my stomach. We were supposed to be home for dinner. With Kate’s champagne.
Celeste must mistake my fear of upsetting my sister for something else completely because she reaches a gentle hand out and places it on my shoulder. “We rent out our spare rooms here if you need a place to stay for the evening. We have one left.”
“That would be great, Celeste. Thank you,” Reid interrupts, making the decision for me.
Celeste’s fingers squeeze on my shoulder and I know I was right about her giving the best hug from the reassuring squeeze alone. “I can show you your room when you’re ready. Enjoy your time.”
I drop my arms to the table and bury my face in them. “What are we going to do?” I groan, the words muffled by my arms. Reid’s hand starts rubbing gentle circles on my back.
“What do you mean? We’re going to spend the night here until it’s safe to drive again. I don’t know these roads. It’s not safe to navigate in a torrential downpour.”
“It might be safer than whatever hell is going to be waiting for us back at the villa when we don’t show up.” I lift my head up to look at him. “Kate is going to kill me.”
He rolls his eyes. “If Kate is a good sister, she’ll understand.”
I scoff at that. “She has a lot going on this week. She’s not going to understand anything that disappoints her and throws off her plans.”
“I still have hope that she can see how much you care and would do anything for her.”
I draw in a breath, trying to push the worry down. Reid grabs my hands across the table and somehow it pushes the worry down a fraction.
“Don’t worry about disappointing her tonight. It’s a random dinner, not the rehearsal dinner or the wedding. You were at every single thing she asked you to be at. This is out of your control.”
“You tell her that.”
“Happily.”
I finally look from the dark sky and the heavy sheets of rain to his face. He looks determined. Prepared. Ready to fight a battle for me.
As if on cue, my phone starts buzzing in my back pocket. My stomach drops.
“That’s going to be her.” My voice is a whisper, almost like the stress is pressing on my lungs and not allowing me to get the words out fully. I drop one of his hands and slide the phone out of my pocket.
“Don’t answer it,” he instructs. There’s such a deep command in his voice that my fingers automatically slide toward the red “decline call” button. But then my eyes snag on the photo again—on mine and my sister’s smiling faces, a laugh caught on camera, a joy that I haven’t felt between us in years—and I pause.
“I have to answer it,” I whisper. “If I don’t answer, she’s going to be upset at me.”
“She’s going to be upset with you regardless so you might as well enjoy the rest of your night and just have her yell at you later.”
But I don’t decline the call. I look back at the screen, a lump forming in my throat. Reid gently pulls the phone from my hand. I look up to him, tears blurring my vision. His blue-gray eyes hold mine as he clicks the side button and turns the phone off.
