"Nobody else was having ginger ale!"
"If everybody else was jumping off a bridge," Keana said in warning tones, and Cole kissed her.
"First, you're going to be a great mother someday. Second, if everybody else was jumping off a bridge, I'd one hundred percent have a look to see why, and if there was a good reason, yes, I might just jump, too."
Keana sniffed. "It's true. I'll be a fantastic mom. And you can have ginger ale even if nobody else is."
"I don'tlikeginger ale," Cole said petulantly, and left Luke and Sabrina trying not to giggle as he got up in search of orange juice to cure his hangover with.
"You're looking pretty spry," Keana said to Luke accusingly, and he had the grace to look apologetic.
"I was drinking water."
Keana's eyes popped and she whipped around, clearly about to give Cole another scolding, but fortunately for him, he was out of easy earshot and most of the rest of the crew arrived at the same time. All of the other men looked as hungover as Cole, and none of the other women looked any worse than Sabrina felt, which was actually pretty good, at this point. There was an unfamiliar bubble inside her, warm and slightly confusing, until, as the table burst into laughter at something someone said, she recognized it for what it was:
She was happy.
CHAPTER 10
Luke hadn't meant to start trouble, but watching Keana scold Cole was both funny and touching. She was clearly exasperated, but also genuinely fussed about his health. Of course, she was also fairly obviously not at all hungover herself, which made it all funnier, especially since everybody else except Luke—everybody, even Sabrina—was wincing occasionally when light bounced off a glass or silverware clattered together.
They all talked at once, somehow managing to hear and respond to each other. Luke was surprised how easily he followed it, but then, he had six siblings, two parents, and a variety of in-laws at this stage, so he was used to the chaos of a large group of close-knit people. He liked the idea that he would someday belong to this one, although he wasn't sure how to make the transition from fake boyfriend to real boyfriend.
Just tell her you love her!his rabbit said.She loves you too! It'll be great! You can ask her to marry you! Live happily ever after with lots of kits! Go on! Ask right now! GO LUKE GO!
Luke tried not to laugh aloud at the rabbit, although with all the noise and good-natured ribbing going on around him, it would probably go unnoticed.I'm pretty surelotsof babies arenot on Sabrina's agenda, and I'm evenmoresure that Mindy would not like it if I proposed to Sabrina on Mindy's wedding weekend. And also fake boyfriends don't do real proposals.
But you're not a fake boyfriend!his rabbit protested.You're the realest real boyfriend ever! It's fate! It's perfection! It'll all work out! You just gotta tell her!
Later,Luke promised, and didn't mention that 'later' was going to be weeks or months or even years from now, when he finally had a chance to explain about shifters.
Seriously, dude?his rabbit asked incredulously.Years? YEARS? She'll be furious if you wait YEARS. That's living a lie! You can't live a lie! Not with your fated mate! Go on! Tell her! TELL HER RIGHT NOW. GO LUKE GO.
By the end of that, his rabbit sounded more than a little threatening. Luke didn't expect it to suddenly trigger a shift in a hotel restaurant, but its intensity was getting to be a little much. He glanced at Sabrina, wondering what she would think if—when—he told her the truth about himself, and found her watching him with a sweet smile. She looked happy, in a gentle, quiet, content kind of way, with her brown eyes sparkling, albeit a little sleepily. She murmured, "Hey," when he looked at her, and for some reason, that soft greeting made his heart seize up with joy.
He whispered, "Hey," back, and her smile brightened even more. Luke, on impulse, leaned over to kiss her, only realizing that wasn't a pre-arranged agreement as he got within a few inches of her mouth. But Sabrina gave the tiniest nod, and even though he told himself she was just playing along with the fake relationship charade, his heart leaped again. Her mouth was soft and warm and inviting, and unlike the performative kisses on the Ferris wheel, everything about how their lips met felt very, very real.
It was only the briefest of kisses, and if Luke had thought about what their first real kiss would be like, it sure wasn't that it would be in a noisy restaurant, surrounded by friends who were all shouting cheerfully about something called 'padderbee.' He also would never have imagined that all that noise would fade away until there was really nothing in the world but Sabrina's smile and the shy thrill in her gaze for that little kiss, or that he would feel an expansive delight filling him because of it.
Sabrina whispered, "We could bail on padderbee," and Luke couldn't help laughing.
"I'm sorry," he said out loud, not just to Sabrina but the table at large, "butwhatis 'padderbee…?'"
Half a dozen voices chorused, "Paddleboat derby!" along with several variations on, "Weren't youlistening, man?" and at least one, "No, he was gazing soppily into Sabrina's eyes," which made Sabrina turn pink and smile. Luke straightened up, smiling too, until he actually thought through what 'paddleboat derby' might mean.
"Wait, oh no. This isn't like roller derby, is it? We're not going to…what, try to crash-drown each other?"
"It's exactly like roller derby," Mindy said gleefully. "Last boat standing gets the victory crown until next year's pad-derby race."
Now he could hear the separation between 'pad' and 'derby,' if only just. "Victory crown?Nextyear?"
"You haven't told him about the Great Annual Paddleboat Derby Competition?" Mindy gasped at Sabrina. "The sacred tradition of our ancestors?"
Sabrina groaned and put a hand over her face, pulled it down, and smiled at Luke, her expression somewhere between amused and apologetic. "It's Tom and Gina's fault?—"
A huge, unified protest met that claim. Sabrina put her head down on the table. "Fine,youtell it, then!"
"It'struethey rented the paddleboats," Keana put in gleefully. "We were out on a camping trip, this was before anybody got married, but it was a group thing. And the paddleboating was their idea. ButSabrinais the one who turned it into a derby."
