“Most people bring their families this week,” he said finally. “It’s kind of tradition.”
“Oh?”
He nodded, and his voice dropped lower still, his mouth dipping closer to my ear. “The firm puts a lot of weight on family. More than anything else, really.”
I leaned in slightly, every part of me on edge. His voice held a different kind of tone than before, like he was on the verge of revealing a piece of himself that no one else knew about.
“Dean! Vivienne!”
The voice rang out like a firecracker—bright, unfiltered, slicing through the moment before he had a chance to begin.
We both turned in unison as Trisha emerged from the crowd, red hair big and wild, barefoot, her high-heeled boots swinging from one hand as though she'd already given up on decorum for the night. Her cheeks were flushed, her smile loose around the edges.
Thomas followed behind her, wearing a red flannel shirt, and holding up two beers high in the air like a peace offering.
Trisha didn’t wait for an invitation. She threw her arms around us both in a dramatic, slightly off-balance hug that pulled me a half-step closer to Dean. Her breath was laced with tequila as she whispered—far too loudly to be discreet—“Thank God you’re here.” She pulled back, eyes wide as she glanced over her shoulder. “Denise is already tipsy, and Rick is two drinks away from stealing the microphone from the lead singer.”
Dean chuckled softly, the sound low in his chest. “Where’s Emma?”
“Back at the cabin with her grandparents,” Trisha said, waving a hand dismissively. “They insisted on staying in for the night and babysitting.”
Thomas reached her side, handing a beer to each of us. “Which means,” he added with a grin, “we have the night off.”
Dean’s brow lifted. “Dangerous words.”
Trisha laughed, already swaying to the distant rhythm of the band. “Oh, please. We’ve earned it.”
Dean looked at me then, a small twitch of amusement tugging at the corner of his mouth. He gave his head a faint shake, like he was trying to chase off whatever had just passed between us—but the air didn’t clear. It thickened, humming with something quiet and charged.
Thomas said something about the drive, then about the gas station down the road—the closest place with a cell tower—but I barely heard him. Dean had moved behind me, his arm looping loosely around my waist. His thumb slipped into the top of my belt loop—the action so natural that I almost didn’t notice it at all.
Almost.
I tried to play it cool, to remind myself that this was part of the act. But the second he tugged lightly at my hip, my breathcaught. My skin tingled where his hand rested, warmth flooding through me in slow, steady waves until it settled low in my belly.
God, I hated how easily he could do that—how effortlessly he could make my body forget everything my brain had been shouting for weeks.
That this was all for show.
That every touch was for the sake of the story.
That no matter how real it felt… it wasn’t.
It was difficult to think straight.
Especially when the feel of him behind me sent sparks through my body that reached all the way to my toes.
Maybe it was the altitude loosening my restraint, or the fact that we were in the middle of nature, surrounded by stars that stretched to eternity.
Whatever it was, I found myself relaxing into him, almost without thinking.
It was stupid, I knew it was stupid, but I loved how I felt in his arms. I wasn’t used to feeling small. But with Dean, it was different. He made me feel... delicate, like he could scoop me up without breaking a sweat, and I couldn’t ignore the mental image that slipped into my mind of him doing just that.
“That actually reminds me of when he showed up to Sadie Miller’s birthday with a bouquet he’d picked straight from Mrs. Steward’s garden,” Trisha said.
It took me a second to realize she was leaning past me to look at Dean, and that I’d apparently missed a whole stretch of conversation while drifting off into my own head.
“Do you remember that?” she asked him, her tone almost teasing. Then she turned to me. “He couldn’t have been more than twelve. And the flowers were wilted before he even made it there on his bike.”
