Page 59 of Miss Belief

Teagan

What the hell was happening? Had Reid just asked me how many times I’d come? My eyes were as wide as saucers, my face heated. Was he drunk? Was he joking?

Let’s go with honesty for two hundred. “I didn’t finish.”

He leaned in again, the heat of his body seeping into mine with the contact. “What a shame.”

Holy fuck. I was about to hyperventilate. But first, I was about to kiss Reid. For real, it seemed. Knowing this was our first real kiss was doing something to me. Heightening my senses, making my entire body shake with desire. When he pulled away, I felt dizzy. Drunk on whatever fantasy this was and hoping like hell it didn’t stop.

My trance was abruptly ruined, however, once I looked over his shoulder, and spotted Vanessa standing there, rage reflected in her expression.

Shit. Had he done this for a show? Was this once again about her? But what about his words? There was no way those had been a fake, right?

The groom-to-be walked by, shifting my attention. His face was pinched, the bride seemingly in a rage beside him. Damn. If you weren’t happy during your wedding weekend, was it bound to work out?

“Um, things okay with the groom?”

“Nope. I imagine he just got an earful for showing up late and drunk. We went to the bar after our golf outing, which did not make the bride happy judging by the way she greeted the bus by screaming at him. But the guy deserved a bachelor party.”

Translation. They’d been drinking all day. It suddenly occurred to me Reid might have said what he had under the influence of alcohol. The idea doused my hopes in cold water, yet he wasn’t slurring and didn’t seem intoxicated.

My emotions were completely at war with my brain, which was actively overthinking everything.

Reid tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. “How are your nuts?”

Hell if I knew. “Good. Fine.”

“All right, I’ve gotta go do the groomsman thing for this rehearsal. Hopefully, it won’t take long. Then we can eat dinner, listen to the toasts, and get back up to the room to be alone.”

Dammit, there it was again. Him acting like this was no longer fake.

He didn’t seem to notice my internal panic before he joined the other groomsmen to find their places on the promenade overlooking the beach where the wedding ceremony would take place tomorrow.

Forty-five minutes later, he finally rejoined me. He appeared none too happy they’d paired him with Vanessa. But what had he expected when the bride was her cousin?

After the bride and groom were done with more pictures, we all filed into the main restaurant on the other side of the hotel. They had a private room toward the back reserved for the wedding party.

Reid took my hand in his as if it was the most natural thing in the world. It had been natural when we’d been faking it, but what about now? After his words? My heart was slamming in my chest. I was afraid to hope, because hope set you up for disappointment. All of this meant I needed a drink. But I also needed to be sober enough to remember which fork to use.

Everyone around me might think this was a typical dinner, but my anxiety over my table manners or lack thereof was causing my leg to bounce under the table.

But Reid put his palm on my bare thigh to halt the movement, the heat of it burning my skin.

At least he grabbed his water first, which made it easy to know which glass was mine. I downed my full glass in one go, the liquid doing nothing to quell my sudden thirst. Where was my vodka?

With the arrival of the salad, I did as Chloe suggested and took my cues from the people beside me. Right. It was the smallest fork on the outside. And what about the roll? Okay, tear off little pieces. Jesus, I felt like a paranoid chipmunk, stuffing bread into my face while trying not to make a fool of myself. Glancing around, I saw the rest of the party was having a good time while I alone was obsessing. Stupid.

Two drinks later, I’d let go of my initial paranoia over table manners and was happily biting into my shrimp scampi.

“Quick question,” I whispered to Reid after noticing the repeated death glares from the bridal party at the other end of the table.

He leaned over, moving his knee so it touched mine. “What is it?”

“Did something more happen with Vanessa?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Because she’s murdering me with her glares. Which is nothing new, but it’s extra murdery tonight.”