Page 47 of Resisting You
I exhaled. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”
He rang the doorbell and we were met with an intense and immediate chorus of barking dogs. My eyes went wide as four dogs of varying sizes and colors charged the front door, barking at us through the side windows. “Good lord, how many dogs do they have?” I squeaked.
“The big guy, Gatsby, is Steve and Yvonne’s. So is Daisy, the little chihuahua. The labradoodle is Cam’s dog. That one is Ronnie and Lex’s dog, Penny?—”
“It’s like a freaking doggie daycare in there!”
Noah blinked, turning to look at me. “Do you not like dogs?”
My exhale was tighter than I intended it to be. “I love dogs. A lot.”
“But?”
“Come on,” I laughed, gesturing at the insanity happening on the other side of the door. Through the window, several people tried to wrangle the dogs, pushing them back away from the door while Steve unlocked it. “You have to admit, this is a lot. It’s a lot of family to get thrown into and a lot of animals.”
Noah’s grin widened. “You’re saying my family is a lot?”
I opened my mouth to answer, but I was cut off when the door flung open Yvonne and Steve stood there in the doorway, Yvonne with the barking chihuahua in her arms and Steve wearing an apron. The rest of the Tripp family surrounded them in various states of holding back dogs.
“Come on in,” Steve waved. “Quickly, before one of these mongrels gets loose and terrorizes the neighborhood. Again.”
Noah squeezed my hand as we walked through the front door, leaning in to whisper, “You haven’t seen anything yet.”
“My prom datewas so skittish the whole damn night and I couldn’t figure out why. My curfew wasn’t until midnight, but he had me home by ten p.m.,” Ronnie said, running her palm over her pregnant, swollen belly. “It wasn’t until I got to school on Monday that I learned these jerks had threatened him!” She half-stood, swatting at her big brothers. “They had zip-tied himto the flagpole and took compromising photos of him that they threatened to leak if he had me home a minute past curfew.” Ronnie sighed. “Needless to say, he overcompensated and had me homehoursbefore.”
We had finished a full game of Settlers of Cattan and a few rounds of Red Dragon Inn… both new board games to me. And now, we were finishing up the last of the red wine while the Tripps traded war stories.
“What about you?” I elbowed Noah’s ribs. “What trouble did you get into?”
Callie leaned in, falling onto her twin’s shoulder. “My brother?” she snorted. “He was too busy starring in every school play and musical to get into trouble. But he wasquitethe heartbreaker. A quintessential showmancer.”
The tips of Noah’s ears went pink. “Callie,” he hissed.
“Showmancer?” I asked. “What’s that?”
“Mmmm,” Marty piped in. “That’s when you have a romance with someone in your show. Usually, your romantic lead. Instead of a romance, it’s a showmance because it only lasts the length that you’re in the show with the person.”
“Cute,” I teased, poking Noah’s scarlet blushed cheek. “So you fell for your costars over and over again?”
“Hardly,” he groused.
“Oh my God, are you joking?!” Callie exclaimed. “You fell madly in love with whomever you were starring opposite. The Audrey to his Seymour. The Mimi to his Roger, The Juliet to his Romeo?—”
I leaned in and whispered, “Your Mrs. Robinson?”
Noah rolled his eyes at me, a smile softening the gesture. “Hardly,” Noah said, leaning down to pet the unnamed rescue pup who was sleeping in a pen beside him. The fenced in pen was the only way we could think to keep him from trying to play withthe other dogs after just having had his surgery. “What about you, Rosa?”
“Zero showmances for me,” I said.
“No, I mean… were you a troublemaker?” Noah clarified.
“Ooooooh,” Callie’s eyes went wide as she turned to me. “Yeah, what havoc did you wreak in high school?”
Oh boy. I wasn’t sure they were ready for my stories. Mine made theirs sound rookie. “What havocdidn’tI wreak? I made my parent’s lives a living hell.”
Cam took a pull from his beer, giving me a playfully narrowed glare. “You? Nah. I don’t believe that. You look like a straight A student.”
“Oh, I was,” I responded. “I got straight As, but I also broke every rule I could.”
