Page 64 of Stand

But a commotion had started in one corner of the room, and it was getting closer. And louder. And closer.

It was singing.

Happy honeymoon to you,

Happy honeymoon to you.

“Oh, dear God,” Ty said.

“Oh shit, no,” Sam said.

Happy honeymoon, dear Sam and Ty!

Happy honeymoon to you!

Behind the singing wall of waiters and waitresses, Tammy was bouncing on her toes. Sawyer was asleep on her shoulder. “Surprise!” she yelled.

Their waiter put their desserts on the table. Every one of them had a sparkler stuck in the top, which snapped and, well, sparkled, into the silence at the table. Alyssa took her phone away from her ear and looked up at Matt, whose self-satisfied grin shone out over Ty’s shoulder.

Ty’s face would have been comical to behold if Sam hadn’t been so blindsided herself. In the shifting light from the sparklers, she could see his eyes getting bigger and his mouth getting thinner. He threw a glare at Alyssa, who put her hands out in innocence, indicating her phone as an alibi. So he looked to the crowd surrounding them, searching for his feckless son.

“Smart, huh?” Sam teased.

He gave her a look that could melt glass.

“Kiss!” came an all-too-recognizable voice from the back.

“What?” Sam’s teasing smile vanished.

“Kiss!” Tammy called again. Someone else began tapping their fork against their glass.

“Oh shit,” Ty muttered.

Now the whole damn restaurant was in on it. Didn’t they have anything better to do? Like maybe stick those forks in their own eyes? “Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!” they all chanted.

Matt, apparently figuring he was safe now that everyone was looking at them, flopped back into his chair. “Yeah, Dad.Mom. Kiss,” he said.

What would Ty do? Could he really refuse? In front of all these people?

He was coming closer. To keep up the pretense, Sam leaned in as well. She hoped she was smiling a little, as if this were her dearest wish and not incredibly awkward.

Dearest wish…Ty’s stubble was blond, but there was a small gray patch near one corner of his mouth that she hadn’t noticed before. Or maybe it was the light. His lips were fine and chiseled, and she got an almost overwhelming urge to run her tongue over the curve of his lower lip.

His eyes were impossible to read, hooded and shadowed as they were. But he still came closer and now one hand came up to hold her chin, to hold her still, then to draw her in so that finally, finally, he touched her lips with his.

Fine and chiseled they might be, but his lips gave with a softness that drew a muffled gasp from her. She put up a hand to cover the space left bare at his throat by his button-down shirt, perhaps because she had some vague thought that she should make it a short kiss, that it was all that was required, but her hand slid up his neck of its own accord to run over the short hair at his nape and hold him to her.

She wanted a deeper kiss, a much deeper kiss, one that sent shockwaves down her body to her thighs, and she got it by moving her lips over his, opening her mouth just a little so she could taste him better, getting rewarded for her boldness by feeling a breath escape him and his eyelashes brush her cheeks as he closed his eyes. Sam had closed hers long ago, sometime in the world that existed before he’d kissed her, the world she couldn’t understand anymore because kissing him was an absolute requirement of her life, the scent of wood shavings still clinging to him, and Sam was going to run her tongue over that lower lip just as she’d promised herself she might—

And the crowd was whooping and hollering, and Ty had pulled away, leaving Sam like an idiot still leaning toward him, the sparklers still shooting lights between them.

Chapter 18

To save himself from falling into Sam again, Ty narrowed his eyes at Matt. The boy had no idea what he was doing. Ty had told Sam it wasn’t a big deal, but being seen as her husband—even if they only thought of them as together, the way the waitress at the diner had—tolled a bell deep in his soul that he was still shaking from. Matt’s joke had turned deadly serious, to Ty at least.

The crowd was cheering, but Ty couldn’t hear them. He allowed his hands to fall from Sam, though he thought this might be the last time he was ever allowed to touch her. His kids couldn’t see that again. Ty couldn’t give them any kind of ambiguity about a woman in his life. He wouldhaveto stay away from Sam from now on.

Sam looked as shell-shocked as he felt. Ty knew she wasn’t faking that kiss, nor the ones they’d shared before. And she’d admitted she liked him. That was all he could expect. All he should expect.

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