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“We need to go back in, and you need to—” She looks at me. Exhales. “Just—be my boyfriend. Keep doing what you’re doing. But maybe warn me next time before you—”
“Kiss you?”
“Yes.”
“Would you like a verbal warning or a physical signal?”
“I’d like you to stop talking about it.”
“Understood.”
She takes my hand. Threads her fingers through mine. Squeezes once.
“For the record,” she says, not looking at me, “it wasn’t bad.”
“The kiss?”
“Don’t push it.”
We walk back into the rehearsal dinner, and her hand is in mine, and her pulse has slowed, and her smile—when it comes back—is the real one.
Chapter Thirteen
Ruby
Something Borrowed
The hotel room is quiet when we get back.
I drop my clutch on the dresser and kick off my heels. The carpet is soft under my feet, the window is dark, and the vineyard is invisible out there somewhere, and I’m standing in a hotel room with a man who kissed me forty-five minutes ago in front of my ex-boyfriend and my brother and approximately sixty wedding guests, and my lips are still buzzing.
Aiden closes the door behind us. Stands there. Not awkwardly—he doesn’t do awkward. He does still. He does patient. He does that steady, watchful presence that used to unsettle me and now feels like the only solid thing in my life.
“I’m going to change,” I say, grabbing my pajamas from the bag. “I’ll just—bathroom.”
“Okay.”
I take off the green dress and hang it on the back of the door and put on shorts and an old T-shirt. I wash my face and brush my teeth and stare at myself in the mirror for a full thirty seconds.
My lips look the same. They shouldn’t look the same. That kiss felt like something that should leave a mark.
I open the door.
Aiden has taken off the blazer. It’s hung neatly over the desk chair. He’s in the white shirt, untucked now, sleeves pushed up his forearms, and he’s sitting on the edge of the bed, hands on his knees. He looks up when I come out, and his eyes move over my face the way they always do—reading, cataloging, noticing things I don’t want him to notice.
“You can do your shutdown thing in the chair,” I say. “Or the floor. Wherever you’re comfortable. I’ll take the bed.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
I pull back the covers. Get in. The sheets are cool and smooth and hotel-perfect, and I lie on my back and stare at the ceiling, and the ceiling has nothing useful to offer me.
I can hear him. Not doing anything—just existing. The faint creak of the chair as he settles into it. The absence of breathing, which means he’s forgotten to perform it, which means he’s comfortable, which means—
I close my eyes.
The kiss plays behind my eyelids.
