Page 56 of Kiss the Girl
I shot a glance at Grace, trying to decide if I wanted to dig this hole for us.
She sighed. “He’s coming over to our house. Tabitha can’t make it home for Thanksgiving, so I thought it would be a good distraction for my parents.”
“And?” I prompted her.
“Oh, right, and Noah is the best company ever, so of course that’s also why.”
“That didn’t feel sincere,” I complained.
“But that’s perfect,” Brooke said. “You should all come over on Thanksgiving. Gran does a big spread. It’s relaxed and the food is so good. Say yes.”
“No,” Grace said. “You’re bossy. But also, thanks for the invitation. But we’re set for Thanksgiving, I promise. You don’t have to worry about us.”
“Ugh, fine,” Brooke said.
I definitely should have known that wasn’t going to be the end of it.
Chapter Seventeen
Grace
I didn’t normally love Saturdays because we were always so busy at the store with about twenty percent of the customers being dudes old enough to be my dad who didn’t listen to me when I told them what they needed for their home improvement projects. Fifty percent of those same guys would be back in the afternoon to return the wrong thing they’d insisted on buying, and the other half would come back to get the right part but be cranky with me for being right about it.
But Saturdays were becoming my favorite now. It was so fun to work with the team on the booth, watching my dad returning to his old self, listening to the boys talk good-natured trash to each other. And then there was Noah.
I’d be lying if I tried to pretend he wasn’t one of the best parts of Saturdays. Or that it wasn’t fun trying to figure out how to flirt with him before I crossed a line that had his eyes narrowing at me, like he was thinking about how to pay me back. Usually, it involved him coming up with a reason to throw me over his shoulder and move me somewhere else.
No doubt it made me a bad feminist, but I liked it when he did that. A lot.
And I owed him major payback for his stunt at movie night with the ankle stroking and the…the…thesexinessof that. It had become a game between us, seeing how far one of us could push it before the other called them on it.
So far, neither of us had.
I didn’t have a set plan for what I would do this Saturday, but I’d know the opportunity when I saw it.
Luckily, the opportunity came up right away. When Noah arrived, he unloaded Evie from the car with an apologetic look at me. Tears streaked her face, and she did the shudder-sob that kids do at the end of a big cry.
“We had a rough morning,” Noah said. “Evie wasn’t wanting to leave the apartment, but she’ll be fine when she gets all set up at her workbench and remembers how fun it is.”
I wasn’t convinced by his cheerful tone, and the look on Evie’s face said she wasn’t either.
“Evie needs a new project to work on today,” I said. “Let me go grab some things from the house, and I’ll be right back.”
I rummaged through my mom’s office until I found what I needed and returned with a stack of large coffee filters and two pairs of scissors. “We need to make snowflakes for the booth decoration, Evie. It’s a pretty big job, and I need you to be in charge of it. Can you handle that?”
Evie sniffled but settled onto her seat at her workbench. “I don’t know how to make snowflakes.”
“Oh, but your Uncle Noah does, and he’s going to show you how to do it, right, Noah?”
“Um, yes?” He looked confused.
“Watch his hands while he explains what he’s doing.” This made Evie look even more interested, but Noah looked even more confused.
I set a few coffee filters in front of Evie along with the blunt scissors, took some for myself, and went to stand behind Noah who still looked baffled. I tucked the scissors and all but one coffee filter into my toolbelt and slid my arms around his waist. His abs tensed for a minute against my forearms.
I would really, really love to know if those abs looked as good as they felt.
I folded the coffee filter into fourths and whispered, “You narrate the directions.”
