“So.” Marlee unlocked her driver’s side door.
“Do you want my number?” Eli asked. “In case you need anything?”
“I have it.” Marlee held up her hot-pink, rhinestoned case.
“That’s my work number. I don’t usually answer it outside of business hours. You’ll need my personal line.” He shifted on his sneakered feet.
“Sure.” Marlee fidgeted with the power button, finally pressing it so the phone turned on.
It immediately started pinging and pinging and pinging with unread message after unread message. She flinched at each one as if she were Eli and every ping was a recording of the wordmarriageinstead ofpiiiiing.
She didn’t look at the screen. That would be step five in her plan.
Instead, she handed her phone to him so he could add the number. “I’ll be at the Four Seasons. And you have my number.”
First things first, take her time checking in, getting settled, and hanging up her clothes in the closet.
Eli tapped his information into her contacts.
“All set.” He gave her phone back.
“Okay.” She stared at it. Two hundred and seventy-five new text messages flashed back at her.
She swallowed the dry feeling in her throat.
Time to face life. Whatever that meant, now that Scotty wasn’t part of it.
This was it. Yes, the weekend had sucked donkey balls, but she hadn’t been alone during any of it. Her friends had seen to that.
Eli pulled open her door for her, and she slipped onto the seat. “Eli, I’m really sorry.”
“This whole thing isn’t your fault.” He started to close the door but paused. “I’m sorry, too.”
She fussed with the edge of her shirt. “And about the thing that happened after we got married—”
“You don’t need to go there.” He squeezed her shoulder—the bare part exposed by the peekaboo sleeve. “It happened. It was great. Now, we move forward.”
“It was great, wasn’t it?” Her gaze cemented on his.
He nodded, not letting go of her shoulder. “And it must never happen again.”
“Agreed.” Yes, they’d been drunk. But they weren’t quite at the sign-the-wrong-name-on-the-license drunk. Deep down, she knew they both had understood what was happening.
And that was the part that made the hair on her arms stand tall.
It had been great. He had been great.
“Now, let’s never speak of it again,” he said, continuing to hold her gaze.
“Agreed.” A smile toyed with the corners of her mouth.
The thing she’d never fully realized about Eli before was that he had this way of giving his full attention when he was talking to someone. Not that he talked often, but when he did, he gave his full focus. Scotty was always doing ten different things. With Eli? When he talked to her? He made it clear she was the only thing that mattered.
He had to know that he mattered to her, too.
She slid from the seat and hugged him like a lifeline.
He hugged her back.
