Alex shook his head. “Not Marta. She’s pulling out, too.”
I swallowed. It might’ve been easy for Alex to pull out—he was good, but he didn’tcareabout being good, didn’t need anyone to know or acknowledge it.
Marta, on the other hand, could’ve displayed her trophy in the store. It’d mean something for her bid to be manager when Elouise moved on. Proof she knew her stuff.
And shewantedto be manager. Her future depended on it.
A sheet of lightning flashed above us, thunder rolling at almost the same moment.
“The front of that storm’s less than a mile away,” Alex said. “You really wanna be in the water when it hits?” he asked.
No, a little voice in the back of my brain said.
Coward, another one replied.
Brad hadn’t pulled out, and he was starting later than me—he’d gone out of his way to argue himself into the starting slotdirectlyafter mine.
I couldn’t pull out. Not now.
“No,” I said honestly. “But I’ll never live it down if I back out now.”
“This is a bad idea,” Alex said. “Just, y’know, for the record.”
“What’s a bad idea?” Morgan asked, his hand skimming up the back of my neck as he held a tray of hot coffee out between me and Alex, a box of doughnut holes in the middle.
“I love you,” I said automatically, grabbing the cup he passed to me and then pausing in horror.
It was soeasyto say.
Morgan didn’t react, settling down next to me and putting the box of doughnut holes down between me and Alex.
“Figured you could use the fuel,” he murmured, sipping his own coffee.
I love you, I thought, turning the words around in my head.
Was it so weird that I’d fallen in love with him? I’d been preparing myself to fall in love with Morgan for what felt like a lifetime, and now I’d had a taste of what it might’ve been like if we just kept doing this.
Wecouldkeep doing this, couldn’t we? There was nothing stopping us from just… being in love.
Well, except that Morgan maybe didn’t feel the same way. But hecouldhave. It wasn’t impossible.
The thought warmed me even more than the coffee rolling down my throat, and it was sweeter than the powdered sugar I had to lick off my fingers as I ate my share of the doughnut holes.
“Missed a spot,” Morgan said as I wiped them off on my pants—they’d be wet soon enough, a little sugar wouldn’t hurt.
“Where?” I asked, looking my hands over.
“Here,” Morgan murmured, tilting my chin up with the back of his knuckle, leaning in.
My heart leapt into my throat as he kissed the corner of my mouth, tongue darting out, his nose brushing against mine as he changed angle and pressed the next kiss to my lips, soft and sweet, making me smile.
“Got it?” I asked, and I knew I was smiling like a lovestruck idiot at him. This was everything I’d wanted, and I couldn’t believe Ihadit.
“Got it,” Morgan confirmed, letting my chin go. “What’s a bad idea?”
“Getting in that river,” Alex supplied, taking advantage of my distraction to grab an extra few doughnut holes and shove them in his mouth. “While this storm’s getting worse,” he added through his mouthful.
Morgan raised an eyebrow, searching my face as though he was looking for confirmation.
