Reed puckers and Josh laughs.
Quickly, Josh, Reed, and Henn launch into another snarky conversation about something or other—but I’ve stopped listening to them. I’m suddenly too busy gazing at Josh and thinking about how cute he is when he laughs with his friends. I’m thinking about how beautiful his blue eyes are, especially set off by the blue jacket he’s wearing and in the flickering candlelight of this swanky restaurant. I’m remembering the vulnerable look on Josh’s face when I opened my door to him last night, and how he melted into my arms without saying a word besides, “Kat.” I’m wondering how a man can suffer so much heartbreak in his life—his mom’s murder, his dad’s suicide, his brother being institutionalized, his heart getting broken—and yet still manage to laugh and joke around with his friends the way he’s doing right now, like he doesn’t have a care in the world.
I’m thinking all these thoughts and a whole lot more as I stare at Josh in the candlelight and hold his hand in mine.
I lean my head against his muscled shoulder and take a sip of my drink with my free hand and let out a long, relaxed, happy exhale.
Yes, I’m thinking a thousand thoughts right now—and all of them about Joshua William Faraday.
The table erupts in laughter again at something Henn just said. But I’m not listening to the conversation. I turn my face and take a long whiff of Josh’s cologne, and my crotch tingles.
At my movement, Josh kisses the side of my head, even as he’s still engaged in conversation with the table, and my heart skips a beat.
Holy shit.
I want him.
And with each passing day, each passing minute, I seem to want Josh more and more. I want to take him home to meet my family and watch football on the couch and eat my mom’s famous chili and watch my brothers make fun of him relentlessly for one thing or another. I want to make love to him in my apartment, slowly, for hours, and then drift off to sleep, and not wonder whether he’ll be there when I wake up in the morning. I want to see where he lives in L.A. and sit in the passenger seat of his car, whether it’s a Lamborghini or Hyundai, while he drives me to his favorite bar—whether it’s a dive bar or some hot spot—and I don’t want any other woman—any otherblonde—to sit in that seat besides me.
I squeeze Josh’s hand and he squeezes back.
But feeling this way about any man, especially the world’s most eligible bachelor—a playboy who dates supermodels and celebrities (and who, by the way, clearly has a pervy-streak a mile long)—sure seems like an extremely precarious thing to do.
12
JOSH
“Go, Henny! Go, Henny!” Kat chants, shaking her ass, and I laugh.
As we make our way down the hallway to my room, Kat’s re-enacting the way Henn danced tonight on the dance floor at Reed’s club, and she’s doing an uncannily accurate impression.
I join her in doing “The Henn” and she practically falls over, laughing.
“Man, that white boy can dance,” she says.
“Well, hethinkshe can, anyway,” I say.
“When it comes to dancing, isn’t that all that matters?” she counters.
“No.” I laugh. “Not at all.”
She laughs.
“It’s Reed’s personal mission to get Henn to dance every time he sees him,” I say. “Reed says watching Henn dance is his own personal happy place.”
“Well, yeah. Reed made that pretty clear,” Kat retorts. “‘Dance, puppet-boy, dance,’” she says, imitating what Reed said to Henn all night long. She giggles. “You three together are just like my brothers—I felt right at home. And Will sure fit right in with you guys as the fourth musketeer, didn’t he?”
“Love that guy.”
“He reminds me of my little brother Dax.”
“I’d like to meet your brothers,” I say, and the minute I do, I want to stuff the words back into my mouth. Who just said that? Was thatme? Dude. Saying you want to meet a girl’s family is not a casual thing. “Maybe some day,” I add.
She bites her lip. “Sure. Some day.”
We’ve arrived at my room. I swipe the key card and motion to her to enter first. Shit. My heart is racing. I’ve got to watch myself. Slow my shit down. It’s one thing to be feeling like this in Las Vegas, but her family’s in Seattle—in real life. Who knows what the future holds when we leave the bubble of this place?
“Where should I put this?” she asks, holding up the duffel bag with her toothbrush and change of clothes we picked up from her room before coming to mine.
