“I need to keep an eye on her,” I say, “to make sure she’s not carving our initials into the backseat.”
That earns me an eye roll from the woman in question. Then she mouths, “You’re a mess.”
I burst out laughing, and Leslie looks back and forth between us. “What did I miss?”
“Nothing to worry your little head about,” I say. “Some things are sacred.”
“Very few things,” Wendy says with another roll of her eyes.
I pull up to the curb in a no-parking zone in front of Wendy’s building, shift the car into park, step out, and flip my seatback forward.
“Out you get,” I say to Wendy. “And make it snappy.”
“I’ll take however much time I want to, thankyouverymuch.”
I hold a hand out to her, and at first she ignores it, but when she struggles to climb out of the backseat without flashing me or anyone else who might be looking, she reluctantly lets me help her. When she’s finally on her feet outside the car, I cup her face, lean down, and kiss her nose. She tosses me a mock glare and flounces away from me.
“Remember … snappy,” I say.
She flips me the bird without turning around, and I chuckle.
“You two …,” Leslie says from the sidewalk. She shakes her head and then follows Wendy into the building without finishing her statement.
thirty-six
“You kissed Randall Hamilton,” Leslie says as soon as the door to my apartment building closes behind her.
I try and fail to stifle a grin. “I did.”
“And …?”
I know what she’s asking, and I press the elevator button while saying, “I only thought about Tammy before and after, not during.”
We step into the elevator. “That’s a good start, I guess. Is that why you did it—why you asked him to kiss you? So you could see how you’d react?”
“Yes. I knew I needed to find out if I could deal with the kissing issue before letting him back into my heart. I didn’t want to spend the whole weekend wondering, so I went for it. I honestly wasn’t sure he’d say yes. I would have felt like a gigantic fool if he’d said no.”
“There was zero chance that man was going to say no to kissing you.”
We’re quiet until we’re in my apartment. Leslie sits on my bed while I change into comfier clothes.
“Does it bother you that you thought about Tammy at all,” she asks, “even if not during the kiss?”
“It does, but I think that’ll fade with time.” I pull a tank top on. “At least I hope so. Ireallyhope so. Because if not, …” I don’t want to finish that thought.
“Yeah.” She gives me a sad smile.
“But the man can kiss, I’ll give him that.” Oh, can he kiss. Although I don’t want to think about what it took for him to learn how to kiss like that.
She chuckles. “That’s good to hear, but please don’t give me details.”
“I won’t. I may kiss and tell, but the details are private.”
We head downstairs with my bags, and Randall loads them in the trunk.
“You sure you’re only going for the weekend?” he asks. “I wouldn’t take this much stuff for a month-long trip.”
“You’re such a man.”
