Page 9 of One Summer Weekend
“Did you tell them how we started dating?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, what made us go from life-long best friends to a real couple six months ago? That’s probably the only question about you—or us—that I don’t know the answer to.”
Noah frowned, trying to remember if either Jim or Emily had asked him that question and coming up blank. “I don’t think that’s come up.”
“Weird. It probably will this weekend, though, because when a bunch of women have to make small talk at a wedding, stories about how they met their guy and proposal stories are always at the top of the conversation list, so come up with something.”
He could probably spin a convincing yarn about seeing her in a black lace bra and not being able to keep his hands off her, but hereallydidn’t want to think about that right now.
While she finished unpacking—without his help because he’d had enough of that—Noah pulled his phone out of his pocket and opened the photo album. Scrolling back, he found February and scanned the pictures, hoping for inspiration.
“We didn’t do much in February,” he said. “With all the snow we got, I was plowing so much, we only went skiing once.”
“Valentine’s Day,” she said. “Neither of us was seeing anybody, so we decided to stay home, get take-out and watch a movie, and then one thing led to another.”
“Oh, that’s good.” And since they got take-out and watched movies together a lot, it wasn’t even really a lie. Except for theone thing led to anotherpart. Their one thing generally led to him nodding off on her couch, snoring, and her kicking him to make him stop. “A horror movie, and you got scared and ended up on my lap.”
Carly laughed pretty hard at that. “You getting scared and ending up onmylap would be closer to the truth.”
“Jim and Emily don’t need to know that.”
“Fine. Horror movie. I got scared, ended up in your lap, and we talked about the first thing that popped up.”
He tried to give her a disappointed look because that joke was older than them, but he ended up chuckling. “That was bad.”
“I’m saving my best stuff for cocktails on the beach.”
Noah groaned, wishing he’d packed some antacids. He had a feeling he was going to need them. “If I lose my job, I’m moving in with you and eating all your food.”
She just laughed, which did nothing to calm the nerves. He was more of a beer guy, but cocktails on the beach sounded like one hell of a good plan right now.
Noah was pacing in front of the window by the time Carly came out of the bathroom. She’d freshened up as quickly as she could manage, but he was wound tighter than an eight-day clock. “You ready yet?”
He looked at her with a grumpy face, but then his eyes widened. “Damn, Carly. You look smoking...pretty.”
She laughed. “Smoking pretty?”
“I was going to say hot, but that would be weird. I guess.”
If anything was weird, it was the way he was acting. Having his hands in her lace underwear must have scrambled his brain. “And you look exactly the same as when I went in the bathroom.”
He looked down at himself and then shrugged. “I brushed my teeth before you went in there. What else should I do?”
“Nothing.” Noah was Noah and nobody’d managed to change him yet. Not that she was complaining. She liked him the way he was. “Where are we supposed to go?”
“According to the notecard included with the invitation, there’s a room downstairs that opens onto a patio, which leads to the beach. There’s supposed to be a sign.”
“Let’s go, then.”
Because they were running slightly late, Noah wanted to take the ancient elevator down, so Carly mentally crossed her fingers and agreed.
They stood shoulder to shoulder and, as the door closed, he turned to look at her. “You ready for this? You remember everything?”
“Yes. You’re my boyfriend. I remember.”
“I’m being serious.”
