“Five more minutes,” I said, rolling over to burrow under the pile of coats and tablecloths Carter and I had made ourselves comfortable under last night, pulling them up over both of our heads.
Since when had I followed my own good advice?
Carter stirred beside me, an unhappy grunt and wrinkled nose signaling that he was regaining consciousness. I barely stopped myself from darting in to kiss the tip of his adorable nose, and only managed it because I didn’t wanthiminvolved in the ongoing feud between me and his mother.
“We’ve been rescued,” I whispered. “Your mom’s standing over us.”
Another unhappy grunt.
Couldn’t blame him. I was perfectly happy here, even though I knew every muscle I had would hate me the moment I got up.
“Five more minutes,” he said, half-awake. Maybe he heard me, maybe that was just one more way we were alike.
A flash of lazy Sunday mornings spent in bed with him hit me hard. I could picture it all, the sunlight streaming through the curtains, the smell of fresh coffee I’d gotten up to make before slipping back into bed beside him, Carter’s hair sleep-tousled and his eyelids heavy, a tired smile turning up his pretty lips.
Bedclothes rustling as we slipped back under them, hands taking shortcuts, so used to each other’s bodies that we knew exactly where to touch, and how, and a few minutes of gasping, sighing, and moaning later and we’d be curled up together, satisfied without breaking a sweat and happy to nap for another hour before we got up and did it all again in the shower.
It was so easy to imagine justbeinglike this.
“Hey, sleeping beauty!” Carter’s dad called from maybe a few feet away. “Come on, someone’s gotta iron these tablecloths again.”
Carter blinked, pulling the covers down and peering up at his mom and dad standing over us.
His dad nudged my foot, grinning down at me.
“You’re as bad as he is,” Mr. K said. “Made for each other. You’d sleep through an earthquake.”
“Have slept through an earthquake,” I mumbled, forcing myself to sit up and missing Carter’s warmth the second I moved away from it. “Only woke up because of the yelling.”
“I’d never yell,” Carter murmured beside me. “Just, y’know, for the record.”
Mandi appeared at Mrs. K’s side, looking between the two of us. “You sleep like the dead,” she said. “It’s actually kinda eerie.”
I shrugged. “I think it’s nice.”
Carter’s mom being oddly silent—not yelling, barely even huffing over my presence—was definitely weird, but I decided that if she was giving the two of us a break, I’d take it. Last night had been hard enough without waking up and starting right into another fight.
“Time is it?” Carter asked, yawning widely.
“Little after ten. Wedding’s in an hour. You two need to get your asses dressed,” Carter’s dad said. “And so do Trent and I.”
Mrs. K’s face changed instantly. “Excuse me?”
EvenIflinched at the sound of her voice, and I felt Carter tense up next to me.
Mr. K looked her right in the eyes. “It’s Hallie’s wedding,” he said. “Not yours. And one day it’ll be Carter’s wedding,not yours. And if he’ll have me, it’ll bemywedding, too, and I’d be a liar if I said I wasn’t looking forward to doing one of these without you micromanaging every hair on my goddamn head.”
Wow.
Wow.
I’d lived next to Mr. K since I was thirteen and I’d never heard him talk back to Mrs. K. Not even once. Not before now.
Tension hung like the smell of the air before a storm, a crackle of lightning between them.
“Did you just ask me to marry you?” Trent interrupted, voice pitching up at the end, like he couldn’t quite believe it.
Hell,Icouldn’t quite believe it. I’d never thought of Mr. K as someone I could beproudof before, but I was so proud of him.
