Chapter Nineteen George Returns #2
“On three!” he yells over the wind.
“What happens on three?”
“I don’t know! I’m making this up!”
I laugh. Can’t help it. We’re in the middle of a storm, wrestling a tent, both soaked within seconds, and he’s making it up as he goes.
“ONE!”
The wind gusts harder.
“TWO!”
Lightning flashes. His face is lit up for a second—jaw clenched, rain running down his cheeks, looking weirdly beautiful for someone in crisis mode.
“THREE!”
We pull together. The rope goes taut. The tent corner drops back down.
“The stake!” I point. “It’s coming loose!”
He’s already moving, grabbing a rock to hammer it back in. I hold the rope steady, rain streaming into my eyes.
“Other side!” he shouts.
We run around the tent, chasing loose stakes and rogue ropes. Working together without talking, like we’ve done this before. Like we’re a team. And drive all the stakes in deeper.
The wind starts to die. The rain softens. The tent… holds.
We stand there, breathing hard and completely drenched. Rain drips from my hair down the back of my neck, and my clothes cling to my body. I can feel my heartbeat in my throat.
“We did it,” I breathe, barely audible over the dying wind.
“We did it.” His voice is rough, deeper than usual.
His white shirt is see-through, his hair plastered to his head. There’s mud on his cheek.
He’s never looked better.
He’s close enough to steal my breath, close enough to unravel every defense I’ve rebuilt brick by brick.
And for a second, I wish he would.
“You have…” I reach up without thinking, my thumb brushing the mud away. His skin is warm despite the rain, rough with stubble.
He goes still—completely, utterly still—like I’m a wild animal he doesn’t want to spook.
We’re standing too close, rain-soaked and high on adrenaline. I can see water droplets caught in his eyelashes and feel the heat radiating off him despite the storm.
I brace my palm against his soaked dress shirt to steady myself and feel his heart beating as if he’s sprinted a marathon.
The storm isn’t the only thing crackling; it’s in the half inch of air between our mouths—the taste of lightning, rain, and something terrifyingly inevitable.
I should step back. Instead, my thumb traces the edge of his jaw, and the look he gives me—shocked want wrapped in lawyer-level restraint—makes me forget my own name.
“Poppy…” It’s barely a word—more like a prayer, or a warning.
The sound of my name in his rain-roughened voice stirs something inside me that I don’t want to examine too closely.
“We should get back,” I say quickly, finally—finally—stepping away. Cold air rushes into the space between us.
“Right. Yes.” But he doesn’t move for another beat; he just stands there, looking at me as if he’s trying to memorize this moment.
When we head back inside, Ivy’s bouncing on her toes.
“That was AMAZING! You two were like… tent superheroes!”
“We were just—”
“Saving the day! Together! Like a team!”
Dean and I carefully don’t look at each other.
“I should…” I gesture vaguely at my soaked everything. “The rehearsal dinner starts in two hours and—”
“Go!” Ivy shoos me toward the door. “We’ll finish up here. You need to get ready!”
Perfect. It’s just enough time to get ready, check on last minute details and to have a small, private breakdown. Yay, me.
Two hours later, I’m blow-dried and dressed and trying not to think about Dean in the rain. It’s going poorly.
CeCe eyes me as I apply mascara for the third time, my hand shaking slightly. “You okay?”
“Fine.” The word comes out too fast, too high.
“You sure? Because you’ve been staring at that tube for five minutes.”
I blink, realizing she’s right. The mascara wand is frozen halfway to my face. “Just thinking about the rehearsal.”
“Uh-huh.” She sprawls on the bed, watching me with those knowing eyes that see too much. “And this has nothing to do with tent wrestling in the rain with—”
“We were saving the tent.” I focus very hard on my reflection, not meeting her gaze.
“Sexually?”
“How do you save a tent sexually?” But my cheeks are warm.
“I don’t know, but you two managed it.” She’s grinning now, delighted by my suffering.
I throw my lipstick at her. She dodges easily, laughing.
The rehearsal’s at some restaurant in town. One of those places that tries too hard with Edison bulbs and reclaimed wood everything. I drive with CeCe because I need the moral support and also someone to stop me from doing anything stupid.
Like thinking about Dean’s hands on mine.
Or the mud on his cheek.
Or the way he said my name in the rain.
“You’re doing it again,” CeCe says.
“What?”
“That face.”
“What face?”
“Your I’m-thinking-about-Dean’s-wet-shirt face.”
“I don’t have a—”
“You literally just sighed.”
“I’m TIRED.”
We pull into the restaurant parking lot. I can see the wedding party through the windows. Everyone laughing, mingling, being normal humans who didn’t just have a moment in a storm.
Dean’s already there. Of course. Standing by the bar in a fresh shirt and dark jeans, looking like he didn’t just wrestle nature itself.
He sees us pull up. Watches through the window as I get out of the car.
Our eyes meet.
And I know—I know—we’re both thinking about the rain.
“Ready?” CeCe asks.
No. Not even a little bit.
“Let’s do this.”
We walk in together, and I can feel his eyes tracking me across the room. The rehearsal dinner officially starts in ten minutes.
But the tension between us?
That started two hours ago in a storm.
And something tells me it’s only going to get worse.