Chapter 13
Sabrina woke up cheerful, couldn't figure out why, and rolled out of bed to head for the shower before remembering Luke's solemnly sworn Vulcan oath.
She muffled renewed laughter before she even hit the bathroom, and was showered and out of the bathroom to make Luke a cup of coffee before he even woke up.
The scent of it brewing did waken him, though, and he lifted his head with sleepy blinks that turned into surprised eyebrows. "You're up first?"
"Apparently going to sleep beside somebody who makes me laugh is good! Coffee's almost ready. I'm surprised you'd didn't get up to go to the gym."
"Me too," he said a bit hoarsely before sitting up and rubbing his hand over his eyes. "Coffee smells good, though. Thanks. What time is it?"
"Almost nine. I think I slept for eight hours straight. That never happens."
"Maybe that's why you're chipper." Luke yawned and stretched, making his sleep shirt cling and press against his body. For three or four seconds, Sabrina forgot entirely that she probably shouldn't be gawking at her fake boyfriend, and…well…gawked.
Then she shook herself and forced herself to glance away. "Maybe it is. I don't usually get eight hours."
"Me either," Luke said with another yawn. "Now wondering why, though. The gym is probably still there at ten a.m. instead of five."
"Are you going?" Sabrina handed him his coffee, which had a splash of milk in it, as he preferred. After a sip, he smiled at her.
"Perfect. You remembered. And…I don't know. I should, but I only have one more day of being your fake boyfriend and I don't want to miss any of it."
Sabrina's heart thumped. "Really?"
"Really. I've loved every minute of this."
Sabrina caught her breath, about to ask if he might want to make it more real, except then he finished saying, "Except maybe being laughed at last night," and derailed her completely.
"Hey! I was not laughing at you in bed! That would be worth not liking, but I wasn't!"
"You were definitely in bed and laughing at me."
Predictably but, she felt, defensibly, Sabrina laughed again. "You know what I mean!"
"Yeah." Luke gave her a sleepy smile that made her heart flip and thump. "And I didn't really mind. You probably figured out I'm not a Boy Scout, though."
"I did, yes, although I'm a little surprised. You seem like the type. Very wholesome."
"I don't have to be wholesome."
"Oh, I don't know, I think it's a good look on you. If you're not going to go to the gym, hop up and get showered so we can get breakfast with the rest of them. I'm starving, for some reason."
"Yes'm." Luke rolled out of bed with a flash of long, well-muscled legs as he staggered to the shower.
As soon as he was gone, she grabbed a pillow and shrieked into it, then fell onto her back on the bed and, still into the pillow, said, "What are you doing," to herself.
She barely even knew what the question meant, except it had a lot to do with Luke Jones and an impulse to put a ring on it before he got away.
Maybe him loving every minute of it was just because it was a crazy weekend getaway, spontaneous and silly.
Maybe it had nothing to do with her. Maybe she should keep her mouth shut until they were back in Virtue, because there, if he wasn't interested, at least she wouldn't be stuck in a hotel room and on a plane flight with him for another night.
Maybe she should throw all caution to the wind and follow him into the shower.
That sounded like the best idea she'd had in weeks.
Months. Years. Maybe in her entire life.
The only down side was that if he was pleased at the interruption, they would be very, very late to breakfast, and also possibly to the wedding, in which case, Mindy would actually kill her.
Sabrina took the pillow off her face and said, "The things I do for friendship," to the hotel room ceiling, and got up to finish getting ready for breakfast.
Luke came out in his towel several minutes later and she glanced at him like somebody who had gotten used to how fabulously hot and built he was and wasn't bothered by it at all.
It turned out she was entirely wrong and she was not at all used to how hot and built he was. It was hard not to just keep gaping at him, though she made a real effort that ended in grabbing her phone just so she had something else to look at.
Luke and his towel paused on their way back into the bathroom, leaning back a little with water beading on his chest and stomach and the muscle there in magnificent definition. "Did you want a picture?"
There was some movie with a line something like "if someone asks if you're a god, you say yes.
" Sabrina felt like she was in that territory as she squeaked, "Yes?
" even though she hadn't had any intention of taking his picture originally.
Luke crooked a smile at her, she lifted the phone and took a picture, and he went into the bathroom to get dressed while she flipped to the picture and squeaked again.
He could not possibly have looked more like a fitness model if he'd tried.
Her phone had even automatically switched to portrait mode, so the background was softened up a bit and the bathroom light gleamed on his insanely well-defined abs.
The towel, tucked very low, made an incredibly intriguing line down his hip.
His dark brown gaze seemed to look straight into her soul, and that little smile of his was the warmest, most inviting thing she'd ever seen.
Sabrina bit her knuckle, squeaked a third time, and in the name of red-blooded heterosexual women everywhere, set the picture as her phone background.
Not the lock screen. That would be crass, she thought.
But her home screen. And then she spent several minutes rearranging all her icons so they didn't get in the way of her ability to admire Luke Jones In A Towel On Her Phone.
She thought she might get a print, and title it that way.
Then she turned the phone off and put it in her purse just so she wouldn't get caught drooling over her fake boyfriend when he came out of the bathroom, and when he did, they went down to breakfast. This time holding hands felt much more natural, and Luke winked at her as they sat down with everybody else.
Gina went "OooOOoOOO, no wonder they're late. "
Sabrina said, "We're right on time!" but blushed, while Luke, the traitor, didn't blush at all.
There was a lot of nervous energy at the table, and Mindy was skipping breakfast entirely. Craig, with a shrugged smile, said, "She's leaning into the 'bad luck to see the bride before the wedding' thing. I spent the night in my parents' room!"
The Girls at the table exchanged glances, collected a variety of snacks, and went up to Mindy's room en masse, knocking on the door.
She opened it, flustered, and they poured in, insisting she eat and taking over the little tasks she was obviously involved in, like checking her dress for creases or trying to shake her veil out.
"There's time to eat," Gina promised her.
"And believe me, you can't eat enough in the next few hours to not fit in your dress.
I should know. I stress-ate my way through my entire wedding day. "
"I remember," Mindy said, sniffly, and they got her to sit down and eat something. "Did you see Craig?"
"We did." Keana sat beside her and leaned in.
"He's jittery. Everybody's jittery. But there's nothing to worry about.
It's all going to be perfect. No coffee," she added firmly as Mindy tried to reach for a cup.
The redhead looked offended, and Keana grinned.
"You're already on edge. You don't need the caffeine.
I'll make you a nice cup of hot chocolate if you want something warm to drink. "
"I'm not twelve," Mindy said acerbically, sounding like herself again, and laughter filled the room.
Things went smoothly after that, with the bride calming down and the bridesmaids running errands until it was time to go down to the green room set aside for the bridal party to get ready in.
Mindy's mom and sisters were there, and the six year old cousin who was the flower girl, though she spent most of the time sitting in a corner reading her way through a stack of books.
By the time Mindy's hair and makeup were done, the whole atmosphere was one of joyful, gentle celebration, and nobody argued when she insisted the bridesmaids get dressed first.
"I want to be surrounded by you when I get the dress on," she said scratchily, and then everybody had to try not to cry and wreck their makeup.
Sabrina was, as she'd known she would be, right about the dresses: the straight-but-not fitted gowns looked fantastic on the taller women, but as they didn't have nipped waists, hers made her look short and blocky.
It didn't matter except to her own vanity, and even so, there were worse things than being short and blocky.
It wasn't about her anyway, and most important of all, Mindy looked unbelievably beautiful in an ivory gown that flattered her red-headed skin tones, with her hair up in soft curls and a floaty veil falling around her shoulders.
By that time they were all nearly in tears again, and Sabrina felt full-up and happily weepy all the way down the aisle and through the ceremony, watching her friends get married.
Luke was the only one of The Boys not in the wedding party, which was fair enough, since he'd only been involved with Sabrina for—well, six weeks or three days, depending on which story she wanted to pick.
But he was, as promised, in a well-fitted tuxedo, and to Sabrina's eyes, he stood out among even an entire crowd of wedding attendees in tuxes and dark, formal suits.
He managed not to upstage Craig, but only because he wasn't in the wedding party, Sabrina thought.
And because as a relative stranger, he was sitting near the back.
Of course, if he'd been in the wedding party, he'd have been dressed to match the other Boys, which would make him less likely to stand out anyway, but regardless, Sabrina found her gaze drifting to him time and again during the ceremony.
Every time it did, she found him watching her with a smile, and her heart lifted with it.
She didn't know what that meant, only that it made her happy.
The reception line sped by, and then they were all going to the formal dinner.
Sabrina was at the head table with the rest of the wedding party, but someone had rearranged the seating enough for Luke to be nearby.
They were too far to talk, but close enough to watch each other, which they did until Gina elbowed Sabrina and said, "You two are being sappier than Mindy and Craig. Cut it out."
Sabrina blushed. "Whoops. Sorry." She did her best to cut it out until after the first several dances between the bride and groom, the in-laws, and then the bridal party, who mostly all knew how to waltz at this point, because this was the fourth wedding most of them had been in.
Finally, once she was released from the duties of the evening, Sabrina stepped off the dance floor and found Luke waiting for her with a smile.
"You look…columnar."
Sabrina burst out laughing. "Thank you. That was the most honest and yet strangely flattering thing you could have said to an architect."
Luke beamed. "I hoped it would work for you. Otherwise I was going to get smacked. Honestly, it's more flattering than you think, for what it's worth. But I see what you mean, compared to the one you wore yesterday, or how it fits the other women."
"Yeah. If it just could have…" She cinched the waist with her hands, bringing the fabric in so it followed her curves a little better, and glanced up with a wry smile.
Luke's expression went a bit thunderstruck. "Yes. Yeah, if it could have…wow. Tell you what," he offered in a rush. "If you want a reason to wear it again I'll bring you out to a fancier dinner than Virtue can offer and you can get it fitted to really flatter you?"
Utter, overwhelming joy shot through Sabrina's whole body. "Are you suggesting we go on a real date?"
He dragged in a deep breath, examining her expression and—she hoped—liking what he found there. "I would love that, if you'd be interested."
"I would love it."
The same joy Sabrina felt appeared on Luke's face, and then, as the music changed, he glanced at the dance floor and offered his hand. "May I have this dance?"
"Of course." She stepped onto the floor with him, laughing as she tried to put her arms around his neck and decided it was more comfortable to rest her palms against his shoulders. "I'm too short."
"You're perfect," he said a bit strenuously. "Sabrina, I know I've literally just asked you on our first actual date, but wo—"
"Oh my God," a woman said from a few feet away, then lurched onto the dance floor to physically pull Luke away from Sabrina.
"Is that—are you—I'm sorry, but you are, aren't you?
You're Luke Jones, right? The Gym Bunny?
I love your fitness channel, oh my God! Can I have a selfie?
I had no idea you knew Mindy! How totally cool!
I'm Zojurn776, by the way, we've totally chatted in your comments although," she trilled a high laugh, "you've never taken me up on the invitation to slide into my DMs. But that's okay because now we know each other!
This is amazing!" She took her phone out from a clutch and dragged Luke away, leaving Sabrina flabbergasted on the floor.