He laughs and drops onto the end of my chair. “And miss the chance to watch you turn red all the way to your ears after I snoop on your little secret list? No, thank you.”
I set the planner on the side table, trying not to smile.
“It’s not a secret list,” I say, lifting my chin and narrowing my eyes at him. “It’s just things I want to do eventually. And if anyone here is keeping secrets, it’s you. You came back from New Jersey earlier than planned—completely out of nowhere, might I add—and don’t think I haven’t noticed the way your eyes go all distant when you think no one’s looking.”
Mark exhales and runs a hand through his hair.
“I may or may not have gotten myself into a bit of a mess,” he murmurs, staring at the pool.
He doesn’t say anything for a moment. I wait, but when he finally turns back to me, he’s wearing that same big, beautiful smile. Except it doesn’t reach his eyes.
“But it doesn’t matter,” he says lightly. “Now hurry up and get ready, because if we’re late, Felicity is going to blame me, not you.”
I study him carefully. His social mask is firmly in place, but I know him too well.
“Even after all these years, you think you have to carry everyone’s burdens but refuse to share your own,” I say, placing my hand on his shoulder. “As always, I’ll wait until you’re ready to talk. But if you take too long, I’m going to be forced to use your own tactics on you.”
Mark laughs and wraps an arm around my shoulders, pulling me into a half-hug.
“Let me understand it first,” he murmurs. “Then I’ll tell you.”
“I could help you understand,” I offer, looking up at him.
“Nice try,” he smirks. “But I’m not in the mood to unpack all that drama today. I’d rather drown myself in margaritas and mojitos. I even hired a driver so neither of us has to be responsible tonight.”
I stand and give him the space he needs, smiling despite the knot of worry forming inside me over all the possibilities.
But deep down, I know one thing for certain:
Whatever happened... it has everything to do with the mysterious woman from New Jersey.
Felicity throws her head back in laughter, her ponytail swinging with the movement.
A few people turn to look at our table, but she doesn’t care.
As she likes to say,“If I stop to worry about what other people think of me, I won’t live.”
And Felicity is a woman who commands attention the second she walks into a room. Mark and I arrived at the Mexican restaurant before her—she’d been stuck in a meeting—and when she finally walked in twenty minutes late, heads turned right away.
She looked like a runway model who accidentally wandered into the wrong setting. Wearing a perfectly tailored black pantsuit that hugged her body in all the right places. She’s already ditched the blazer, leaving her in a white blouse that gives her an off-duty glamour.
“I swear, Mark,” Felicity says between bursts of laughter, “when I turned that vibrator ring on in her hand, she dropped it like it was going to bite her—or explode.”
I roll my eyes, because it happened more than ten years ago, yet she’s resurrected the story and is telling it as if it happened yesterday.
To this day, I regret confessing to her that I had never been to a sex shop before. Because the next thing I knew, she invited me out to help her choose a new handbag. Which turned out to be nothing more than an excuse to drag me into a well-known sex shop.
Long story short, she embarrassed me in the most Felicity way possible... and then handpicked a few items she called a “beginner’s kit,” shoved them into a bag, and gifted them to me before I could even protest.
Which, of course, is exactly the part she’s finishing as she turns to look at me now with a wicked grin.
“And to this day, you’ve never told me if you used everything I put in that box.”
Mark covers his ears. “Nope, definitely not,” he says. “I donotwant to know anything about Cecily’s sex life. No guy wants to think about his sister having sex.”
He shudders, as if the mere thought is traumatizing.
Felicity snorts. I take a sip of my margarita, cheeks warming. We all burst into laughter, and I pointedly ignore Felicity’s question.
