“You’re gorgeous with or without that shit.”
Warm fuzzies stir in my chest even as he turns and walks back to his post. Strangers weren’t the only people privy to our show. All of his—our?—friends are gathered around the counter with varying degrees of amusement on their features.
“So I take it things between you two are going well?” Evelyn ambushes me as I join them.
“Yes, things are going quite well.” My face flushes thinking about howgoodthings are.
“Come on now, you gotta give us more than that,” Karis pipes in.
“Like you haven’t heard it all from Gage.”
“Actually, I haven’t,” she says with a huff and glares at the smug man. “Gage is being annoyingly tight-lipped about your relationship. I need some details, woman.”
I glance at my boyfriend for guidance, and he gives me a small nod as his lips curl into a grin.
“Okay, fine. But I’m not doing this here. I don’t want to inflate his ego by gushing about him in earshot.”
Karis gags, but Evelyn is already on her feet and dragging me toward an empty high-top near the front.
“Don’t worry, lover boy, we’ll bring her right back,” Karis says as she follows. Nathan is two steps behind her, but she turns and pins him with a sharp stare. “Girls only.”
He sighs but sits back down beside Morgan and James.
“Spill,” Karis demands once we’re on our own.
“What do you want to know?”
“Everything!” Evelyn says with glee. “What is he like once you get past the porcupine exterior?”
“I don’t know, he was never exactly Mr. Prickly with me before all of this. He’s always been incredibly attentive and patient with me, so that hasn’t changed.”
Evelyn gives me a “go on” look, and I sigh. She isn’t going to relent on this.
“The main difference is how much more touchy he is. Like, I’m talking a hand on me at all times, touchy. He smiles more often, and he is more playful.”
“Gage smiles?” Evelyn asks in disbelief.
“Shut up. Everyone smiles.”
“Not Gage, at least not often,” Karis adds as she goes to take a sip of her drink.
Pride blossoms in my chest. There’s something satisfying in knowing all his smiles are only for me.
“How is he in bed? A man like that has to know what he’s doing,” Evelyn asks, and Karis chokes, sputtering liquid down her chin.
“Don’t answer that, Kori,” she says with a deadly glare.
“Oh, come on, don’t be a stick-in-the-mud.”
“I’m sorry I don’t want to hear about my best friend’s penis.” Karis’s words are far too loud, drawing odd looks from the strangers around us.
“We haven’t actually done that yet,” I admit and cast my eyes toward the table.
I don’t know why admitting that feels so shameful. It’s not that I don’t want that— because I do—it’s just that every time things start to get hot and heavy, he stops them. Hell, he hasn’t even let me take his shirt off, let alone get him off again. It’s torturous. If I didn’t feel the evidence of his arousal, I’d think he wasn’t into me at all.
“Oh, thank God.” Karis breathes a sigh of relief as Evelyn sits up to her full height.
“I’m sorry, what? How have you not climbed that man like a tree?”
