Page 54 of The Catch

“I didn’t say I didn’t like it.”

His accent was getting thicker, and she smiled at the tell. “You know, we spend a lot of our time together tipsy,” she offered, feeling her own words start to swim.

Josh shrugged, lazily. “Guess that’s what happens when you only see each other on weekends.”

“True,” she agreed, thinking back to the dive bar they met at, and dinners out, and work parties, and barbeques they had been accompanying each other to week after week since.

“Does that bother you?”

“No. It just seems like we’re still on vacation sometimes.”

Josh nodded, his brow creasing as if he were searching for a solution in his head. He was always doing that: taking her seriously, putting in the work he’d said he wasn’t afraid of. She settled her head on his chest, feeling her affection for him surge.

“Next weekend, we’ll stay in,” he decided. “I’ll help you study, and then we can argue about what to watch on television like a Tuesday night couple.”

“That actually sounds like a very enjoyable day.”

He leaned in to kiss her, offering a chaste peck that was suffused with promise. “I think so too.”

“Hands on hips, Josh.” Sonya’s boyfriend twirled her over toward them, and she gestured to the lack of space between them. “Make some room for Jesus.”

“She went to parochial school,” Cat explained. “And she thinks she’s funny.”

“Sorry, Ma’am. Won’t happen again.”

“That’s right. Good to see you again.”

“You too. Been a while.”

“Cat likes to keep you to herself when you’re in town. She doesn’t like it when we see her all smiley and giggly. Hurts her image.”

She shot Sonya a look, but Josh was quick as usual. “I’m the one with the smile tonight,” he said. “Look at her. She’s beautiful.”

The blood rushed to Cat’s cheeks. She wished Sonya and Marcus would find another spot on the floor, but they were quickly joined by the bride herself and her new husband.

“Hey, Josh!” Emma’s cumulus cloud of a dress rustled as she wrapped her arms around Josh’s shoulders.

Josh paused their dance to hug her back. “Emma, Adam, congratulations. It’s a beautiful wedding.”

“Thanks,” Adam replied. “We’re really glad you could come.”

Adam and Josh had hit it off immediately the day they’d been introduced. Their budding bromance was on full display as she watched them fist-bump their hellos. If there was a part of her life that Josh didn’t fit perfectly into, she hadn’t found it yet.

Cat held her high heels in her hand, the gaudy but plush hotel carpet squishing like a cloud under her tired feet. Josh had his arm slung around her waist, initially to help with her wobbly legs, but now it was serving as more of a distraction with his hand roaming up and down her belly, dipping lower and lower as they approached the door to their room. She tilted her head up, nipping at his jaw, and he let out a low growl.

“Here we are again,” she simpered. “Stumbling toward a hotel room in the middle of the night.”

“Dylan better not be in there.” He dipped his head to catch her attempt at another bite and turn it into a kiss. “And you’re the only one stumbling.”

That might be true. You couldn’t ask for a better wedding date than Josh Rideout. He danced, made small talk with a hundred people he didn’t know, gave her half his cake. She had every intention of rewarding him as soon as her head stopped spinning.

When he opened the door to their room, Cat made a beeline for the bed, tossing her shoes aside, and fell face-first onto the mattress. “I drank too much.”

Josh pulled his shoes off too, discarding his suit jacket on the back of a chair, and came to sit beside her. “You feel okay?”

“I do right now. It’s tomorrow I’m worried about.”

He leaned over her, found the little hook that kept her dress closed, and flicked it open, then he ran the zipper down, pausing to leave small kisses on her back as he exposed it. “Cat, this is working between us, right?” He stood to tug the short dress out from under her and down her legs.

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