Page 90 of Holding On To Good

“I’ll just take those,” Toby said, leaning across the table to snatch Urban’s silverware from his reach.

Not a bad idea. Urban looked ready to dig Miles’s heart out of his chest with his spoon.

“You’ve got a thing for Willow?” she asked Urban. “For real?”

“No.”

But he wouldn’t meet her eyes and his gruff denial was drowned out by Miles and Toby speaking at the same time, saying the same simple word. “Yes.”

Those two. Mount Laurel’s own dynamic duo.

“Did he actually tell you he’s into Willow?” Verity asked Miles.

Look, she didn’t want to be a suspicious Sally like he was, but she’d never seen any sign that Urban thought of Willow as anything more than a friend.

And she’d hate it if she’d missed something this huge and important.

“He,” Urban muttered, “is sitting right here.”

Miles smirked at her. “Didn’t have to. It’s been clear for years.”

She waited but his opinion and certainty that he was right seemed to be the extent of his evidence.

Neither of which would ever hold up in a court of law.

You’d think the man would know that.

“Nope,” she said. “Not buying it. You’re just messing with him and, by doing so, getting my hopes up in the process. Not cool.”

She’d love nothing more than for Willow to be her sister-in-law.

“You’ve never noticed?” Miles asked.

“Noticed what?”

“How he looks at her when he thinks no one is paying attention? It’s written all over his face.”

Urban shifted, his hands clenched around the table top as if stopping himself from leaping across the table and reaching down Miles’s throat for his heart—spoon be damned. “Still. Sitting. Right. The fuck. Here.”

“Be brave,” she told him, giving his hand a sympathetic pat. “It’ll all be over in a minute.” She turned to Miles. “What’s written all over his face?”

But it was Toby who answered her.

“Longing.”

Verity sucked in a sharp breath. The word, said softly, seemed to hover above the table, filling the space between them, pushing and pushing and pushing against them with its significance.

No wonder. This was huge. And not what she’d expected. She thought the answer would be desire. Or love.

Either of those would have been understandable. Desire was basic and physical and all part of the human experience. It burned hot and intense, flaring high and bright, but the fire was fleeting—and easily extinguished by a round or two of sweaty sex. Barring the opportunity for the aforementioned bouts of sweaty sex, it was usually snuffed out when someone else came along.

Love was a thrilling roller coaster ride of highs and lows that dipped and turned, leaving you twisted inside out and dangling helplessly above a pit of misery or coasting to the finish, exhilarated and grinning, your arms raised triumphantly in the air.

At least, that’s what she surmised.

Her knowledge of both was limited and based solely on her observations of others—her brothers, Willow, Kat, and her friends—and ample amounts of speculation.

Sure, she’d had sexual urges. She was a healthy young woman heading into the prime of her life. And she’d enjoyed a few hot kisses and light petting with a few of the guys she’d gone out with. But she’d never experienced the heart-racing, core-tightening, panty-melting, have-to-have-him-right-now sort of lust that made a girl forget herself, her plans, and her grand ideas about self-preservation and protecting her heart all in the name of the almighty orgasm.

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