Chapter 7 #2
“My telephone number,” she confirms. “Please send me a message after the party, and I’ll tell you what we’re thinking. I do believe it would be a welcome surprise.”
I nod and walk away.
I head for the exit, desperate for a few minutes to myself, but Nora steps in beside me, her green dress swishing against me. I stop in my tracks.
“Miss me?” she asks.
“I…no.”
Sort of.
Actually, she hasn’t left my mind. I even wanted to dance with her earlier.
I don’t know why, exactly, other than that I wanted to prove to her there are some things I can do well, without any additional training.
Perhaps I also like the way the dress she’s wearing flares out when she twirls around.
I saw it happen while I was playing, and it almost made me miss a note.
I still crave fresh air, but I’m not sorry to see her.
I’d like to continue our conversation, even if it’s about José.
Cringing a little as “Copacabana” starts playing over the speakers, I gesture to a thick pillar at the side of the room.
We could stand behind it and get some cover. It might almost feel as if we’re alone.
She gives me a conspiratorial glance, her eyes full of a mischief that feels purely Nora. I have to admit I enjoy being on the receiving end of one of those looks.
When we’re tucked in together, she puts a hand on her hip and sucks in a slow breath, as if psyching herself up for something. “I’m going to try to convince you to do something you won’t want to do.”
What else can I do but laugh?
“Is that supposed to be a novelty?”
She smiles briefly. “No. But you’ve been pretty great today. You know, after you decided not to cart your dad off and leave my mom jilted. I figure I owe you honesty.”
“So what am I going to be persuaded to do now? You want me to touch you in front of someone else?”
I probably shouldn’t have said that, but the memory of her hip under my hand, the curve fitting perfectly, spoke the words for me.
Her lips part in suspense, but a second later fire flickers in her dark eyes. “It’s probably the most action you’ve gotten in months.”
“Back to this, are we?” I ask with a smile, leaning against the pillar. “Yes, it was. Would you like a log of every time I get laid? We Peebles men pride ourselves on our spreadsheets.”
“I’m sorry. I…” She hesitates, giving the stage a sidelong look, as if she thinks the Barry Manilow-loving DJ will save her. “I’m going to ask you for another favor, and I don’t like asking for favors. It makes me prickly. But that’s my fault, not yours. I shouldn’t take it out on you.”
“Is that an apology?” I ask, totally serious. Because I’m not sure it was one, or whether I even want one. I like bickering with Nora.
“It was a shitty one,” she says with a smile. “So what do you say? Will you forgive me and put me out of my misery?”
“All right. What disagreeable promise are you trying to wrest out of me?”
She glances around again, perhaps taking in the disarray caused by this wedding.
Or maybe she’s searching for the nosy little old ladies, who might yet blow up this whole covert operation.
Then she leans in closer, so close I can practically feel the whisper of her satin dress, and says, “I want you to help me break up José and Pansy.”
There it is again.
She’d do anything for this guy, a thought I find more disagreeable than the lies spouted by popular science YouTubers. Then again, he’s charming and good-looking and probably always knows what to say and when to say it. He is her type.
“It’s not a good idea to interfere,” I tell her, trying to keep my tone even.
“Says the man who tried to convince his father not to marry my mother.”
“You thought that was a terrible idea. And you were probably right.” I wave at the dance floor, where our parents are still dancing, my father’s bum hip be damned. “They seem pretty enthusiastic about their decision. Aren’t José and Pansy happy together? They seem to have a lot in common.”
Namely, they’re both disagreeable—her with her perfume and high-pitched utterances, and him…
He was unspeakably rude to Nora, who obviously deserves better from her business partner, not to mention her friend.
“They have nothing in common.” She clenches her jaw. “And he has no idea how unhinged she is. She plays this dumb, innocent part whenever he’s around, but she’s not innocent.”
She looks over her shoulder, then huddles in closer, which I don’t mind at all. “When they first started dating, she sent me a string of anonymous threatening texts.”
I straighten, not liking that one bit. “Nothing’s fully anonymous. You didn’t delete them, did you? If you reported them to the police—”
“It would have become a big thing, and there’s no guarantee they would have even done anything about it. José didn’t believe they were from her.”
“So you think the torment of having dinner with me will be enough motivation for her to suddenly confess? Or were you hoping to dose her with some homemade truth serum? Because I’m sorry to say you don’t have a high chance of success unless you have barbiturates lying around in your bathroom cupboard.
Although, if you do, we should be having a different conversation. ”
A smile ghosts across her face but leaves a frown in its wake. “I don’t have a plan. Or barbiturates. But if she gets comfortable around us, maybe she’ll let something slip. We can unmask her. You know, like they do on Scooby-Doo.”
“Scooby-Doo?”
“You know you watched it.”
“Real people don’t wear masks like that. Do you honestly think this can be settled over a single double date? Don’t get me wrong, it sounds like torment, but if he’s put up with her this long, I can’t see how forty-five disagreeable minutes would make a difference.”
“Is that how long most of your dates last?” she asks with a bemused expression. She leans in a little more, and her scent wafts up to me. She smells like ginger, always, ever since we were in high school, and it suits her down to the soles of her feet.
I clear my throat, trying to tell myself the scent is objectionable even as I crave more of it. “Why, how long do you think it will take?”
“An hour and a half? Two?”
I can’t help but groan.
“You’ll be having dinner with me too,” she points out. “Our parents want us to get along.”
“If you want to have dinner with me, by all means, I’d be thrilled to have a sit-down dinner with you. I was going to suggest it earlier…before you got down on your knees.”
Her eyes crease with her smile. “You were?”
She seems pleased, which makes me feel unreasonably happy. “I was.”
“So everything worked out the way you wanted it to.”
“If you say so,” I reply wryly.
Her smile is filling her whole face now, and I’ll be damned—I’ve become a man who can make Nora Leigh smile. I should get an award for that instead of my work in robotics.
“You know…” she says slowly. “You’re more interesting than I thought you were.”
“And you’re exactly as interesting as I knew you were.”
She seeks out my gaze, and I hold eye contact with her for a long moment before she breaks it, blinking, and takes a step back. “I’m glad we’re going to be hanging out, Cormac.”
I laugh. “Lucky me. I thought my secret fake girlfriend hated me.”
“No, I only ever held you in contempt.”
She lifts her hand. I go perfectly still as she brings it to my face and straightens my bent glasses, her fingers lingering.
For a strained moment, it feels like time is broken and we’ll spend an eternity in this moment, her fingers softly pressed to my flesh.
Then someone calls her name over the latest four-decade-old top forty hit, and she draws her hand back, scrunching her nose. “I better go see what that’s all about.”
Before she turns away, she hands me a card. The brewery’s logo is on one side, her name and a telephone number on the other. “Text me, and we’ll figure out plans.”
“For Cookie, or our ruinous double date?” I push my glasses up on my nose and study the card, feeling a buzz of anticipation. The date is definitely a terrible idea, but I don’t mind the thought of spending more time with spicy Nora. Especially now that she’s decided we’re temporary allies.
“I can’t tell whether you’re trying to be funny or not.”
“If I’m succeeding, let’s say I was trying. I’ll be gone from Friday to Sunday. That’s when I’ll need you to stay with Cookie.”
“Okay, I can do that. I’ll set the double date for after you get back.”
She’s smiling as she walks away, and I find myself watching her cross the room to her friends.
You know what? She does have a truly remarkable ass—and since she can’t see me looking, I feel no need to stop. I keep my gaze pinned on her until she reaches her friends, who greet her with the kind of enthusiasm my presence rarely musters, even with old friends.
I’m making another effort to leave the room that doesn’t want to let me go when Mick calls my name at the bar and waves me over.
He’s there alone, probably because Rob and Travis are with their women.
Honestly, a drink sounds pretty good right about now, so I won’t turn him down, if that’s what he has in mind.
“Hey, whatcha got there?” he asks, when I rest my hand on the bar.
I realize with a start that I’m still holding both numbers in my hand. “They’re women’s phone numbers.”
He grins at me and pats me on the back. “Way to go, Corm. You got more game than I thought.”
“One of them belongs to an eighty-year-old woman, and the other is for my stepsister.”
“You do you, man. You do you.”