“Okay. I promise I’ll be better about dealing with him. And I promise you complete honesty. You can trust me.”
She blows out a breath. “I know.”
“Good. Want to ditch our reception?”
“And go where?”
“Home.” I clear my throat. “I, uh…remember you saying you’d rather eat pizza than hang out in a wedding dress. Don’t get me wrong, you look incredible in that dress, but if you still want the pizza, I can make that happen. Pepperoni, green pepper, and onions. With extra garlic on the crust, right?”
She glances over at me, her cheeks flushed. “That sounds amazing.”
“Good. Let’s do this.”
33
Pizza and Ice Cream
Noli
I’m sitting on the floor of Collin’s basement, trying not to move. I’ve ditched my wedding gown in the spare bedroom, which will now serve as my bedroom, and donned a pair of athletic shorts and a workout tank top over a sports bra.
I’m wearing the least amount of clothes possible while still being semi-appropriate, given our situation. Because when we got back to Collin’s house, we discovered the entire place was without power. My garage apartment was no different. There’s no air conditioning, and the temperature upstairs is eighty-two degrees and climbing.
Hence my basement stakeout. It’s cooler down here than anywhere else in the house. The only problem is, it’s also pitch black.
Collin is upstairs on the phone with the power company, trying to figure out what’s going on. He’s not sure how long power has been out, only that he had electricity this morning when he was getting ready for our wedding.
Oh, hey. Yeah. We got married today.
I still can’t believe that.
It feels like we’ve been married for a solid month already, with everything that went down at the courthouse, and I’m emotionally exhausted.
The power outage wouldn’t be a huge deal if we weren’t in the middle of a late-summer heat wave with humidity holding the entire state in a vise grip. I glance around. Collin was able to produce several candles from his laundry room, and I’ve got them lit so we have some light down here. If someonedidn’t know our circumstances, it might even look like we’re having a romantic wedding night, complete with candlelight to set the mood.
The doorbell rings upstairs, and I hear Collin’s tread across the floor above me. The low murmur of small talk reaches my ears, and I shake my head. I still can’t believe I’m married—and to Collin Rattler, no less.
The stairs creak, and he appears a second later, holding two boxes of pizza. The glow of the flickering candles illuminates his plain white t-shirt. It’s skintight, and it reminds me of the one he wore when we shared a room in Pensacola.
He looks good in that t-shirt. Who am I kidding? He looks sexy all the time.
He looks great in his uniform. He looks great in a suit and tie. He looks great in sweats. The man has no bad side. I mean, who manages to be like that? Other than, say, Stonehenge or something.
“I called the station, and it’s a community-wide issue.” Collin sits next to me. “It sounds like someone hit an electrical power box, and there’s an outage for this whole part of town.”
I cringe. It would not be a fun night to be on call. Community-wide crises like this one will have the phones at the comm center ringing all night long. “Any idea when the power will be back on?”
Collin shakes his head. “Benny didn’t know. He said the power company is working on it, but for now, it’s anybody’s guess. Could be two hours. Could be two days.” He nudges the pizza box in my direction. “Let’s eat.”
I grab a slice, and we enjoy our food in companionable silence.
“This has got to be the most unconventional wedding day in history,” Collin says around a mouthful. “Sorry your first night with me is being spent sweltering in a basement. Not exactly the romantic experience I had hoped to give you.”
“I thought this was part of your strategy.”
He arches a brow.
“You know, bring a woman home to a house that’s burning up and make some quip about needing to shed layers to cool off.”
