Chapter 15
Since 'I want to talk to you' was never a great conversation opener, Sabrina was oddly nervous about going to see the bride, but Mindy fell on her with a hug. "Oh my God. I heard about how you stopped Kerry-Ann from being a freak and wrecking everything. Thank you so much."
"Oh, well, you're welcome. I didn't want anybody to spoil your special day. Or to put their hands on my boyfriend," Sabrina admitted into Mindy's shoulder, then stepped back to smile at her friend. "Did I remember to tell you how beautiful you are?"
Mindy's eyes brightened with tears. "You did, but thank you. I'm so tired," she blurted. "I didn't realize how tiring being the bride was."
"You've been up a long time and expending a lot of energy being the center of attention," Sabrina said. "It's a tough job, but you were up for it."
Mindy hugged her again, then set her back, eyes huge. "So your boyfriend's an influencer? And you kept that under your hat?"
"She didn't know!" Jan crowed, and Mindy's eyes widened even more.
"What? How could you not know?"
"Well, I don't spend a lot of time on fitness social media…" Sabrina laughed as Mindy made a threatening gesture. "He didn't want to tell me right away. I knew he was a physical trainer, but he didn't want me to want him because he's famous. Which is legit."
"Yeah, I guess it is." Mindy gave her a soppy smile. "He seems like a good guy, Sabs. I hope you're happy."
"I am, but today is all about you and Craig," Sabrina reminded her.
Mindy glanced toward her new husband, who was surrounded by The Boys the way Mindy's Girls were around her.
Sabrina, looking that way too, was delighted to see that Luke had joined The Boys, and was clearly being given a hard time about his secret double life as a fitness influencer.
Derek, in fact, looked a little star-struck, now that he didn't have to play it cool and pretend he didn't know who Luke was.
Mindy gave a happy, if tired, sigh. "It is all about us.
And I think we're going to sneak off and go to bed. Early flight tomorrow."
"Honeymoon away!" Keana cried. "Hawaii, here you come!"
"Hawaii, where I'm going to spend the first three days sleeping, which is not how I imagined my married life would start." Mindy hugged Keana. "Thank you for being here. Thank you all for being here."
"We wouldn't have missed it for the world," Sabrina promised.
All The Girls crowded in, hugging Mindy and getting teary.
Finally they broke apart, wishing Mindy well and saying they'd see each other soon.
The Boys also broke apart, and Craig came to sweep his new bride off to their rooms while the rest of them hugged and laughed and took last-minute pictures.
Derek sidled up to Sabrina, though, and said, "So when did you two meet?"
A little spasm of panic ran through her. "What? I told you, the Fourth of July parade."
"Yeah, except I was watching Gym Bunny do a live stream from Norway on July 4th, so…?"
Sabrina's stomach dropped and nervous heat swept through her. "Thursday," she whispered. "We met on Thursday. He's a friend of mine's brother. I did tell the Girls we'd only met two days ago," she confessed, still whispering. "They didn't believe me, but I did tell them."
Derek gently knocked his shoulder against hers.
"Your secret's safe with me. Gotta say, though, that's a hell of a rabbit to pull out of the hat.
Two months of telling them you had a boyfriend and then actually showing up with one you found the day before you left to come here?
Is there a staged breakup in the cards?"
Sabrina looked at Luke, who was patiently refusing to bench press Tom, although he clearly had the strength to do it. "I hope not," she said. "We're going on a real date once we get back to Virtue."
Derek flashed a smile. "Good. He seems like a good guy. Not just on his socials, but for real here, too. I hope it'll work out. But even if it doesn't, I won't tell."
"Thank you," Sabrina said, genuinely grateful. "I do intend to really tell them, especially if it works out. It's just…" She sighed, and Derek looked sympathetic.
"It's just we're all a lot, and it's hard to be single in it. Jan's mentioned that, even though we've been together a long time now."
"And I'm almost always single." Sabrina made a face.
"Yeah, but you've also got the most successful career of any of us, including the guys. You land Luke for real and I'd say you've actually managed to have it all."
"Wouldn't that be nice!"
Derek grinned. "Yeah. Yeah, it would be. All right, I'm going back to Jan before she starts to wonder what we're whispering about."
"We're whispering about what flowers to get her for her birthday," Sabrina said without missing a beat, and Derek snorted.
"I see. You're devious. That's how you pulled this all off to begin with." He waved and went back to Jan, and the party slowly split up, couples going off to bed or back to the dance floor as their mood suited them.
Luke, in fact, lifted his eyebrows and tilted his head toward the elevator in case Sabrina wanted to leave, but she shook her head and extended her hand. Without hesitation, he came to take it, and she smiled up at him. "Our dance got interrupted."
"It did, didn't it? Can I make that up to you?"
"You absolutely can." They went back onto the dance floor, and this time Luke actually did lift her when she put his hands on his shoulders.
Sabrina made a sound between a laugh and a shriek, kicked her feet, and then stopped out of a completely irrational fear he would drop her, even though she knew in her soul that he would never.
Luke grinned, spun her, and put her back down.
"Sorry."
"You're not even the slightest bit sorry."
"I'm really not. You don't weigh anything."
"I weigh enough to stick to the ground," she said, amused, but looked at her feet to make sure, because dancing with Luke made her feel like she was flying.
"I'm not sure that's how it works," he murmured, and for a while there was nothing but his arms, and a feeling of absolute contentment.
In time, though, absolute contentment began to weaken beneath the power of high heels and aching feet, and Sabrina yawned. "It might be time to throw in the towel. Our flight isn't early, but it's not at a civilized two in the afternoon, either."
"As you wish." Luke led her off the dance floor and they headed for the elevators up to their room. "What time is the flight? I'm now realizing I've left every aspect of the logistics to you."
"Well, I am the one who dragged you across the country on no notice, so that's fair. It's at one-thirty."
Luke paused, stared at her, then laughed as he pressed the button. "But not a civilized two. Right. One-thirty p.m.: not civilized. Two p.m.: civilized. Got it. You're really not a morning person, are you?"
"I don't know. We only met a few days ago and I was perky this morning. You might be infectious."
"God, I hope not."
They reached their room—the key card worked this time—and Sabrina kicked her shoes off as soon as they were inside the door. Then she glanced back at Luke, who seemed much taller when she wasn't wearing tall heels, and gestured at her dress. "Unzip me, please?"
"My hands aren't cold this time," he promised, and indeed, they were very warm as they skimmed over her skin. Sabrina shivered anyway, and felt him hesitate behind her before stepping away. "There you go."
That was good, she told herself. They weren't officially dating or anything.
If they were going to randomly hook up, doing so the last night of the trip was a lot smarter than the first night, but overall, still probably not smart.
Not when they still had to deal with the flight back to Virtue tomorrow.
She said, "Thank you," aloud, and Luke murmured a response as she grabbed her sleep shirt and pulled it over her head before letting her dress drop.
After a moment she heard him chuckle. "Sorry. I didn't mean to be watching, but I love the way women do that. Change clothes entirely without a hint of skin showing."
"You've watched a lot of women do that?" Sabrina asked archly, and he chuckled again.
"I have three sisters, so, yeah. Although admittedly I mostly ran screaming from the room if they started changing clothes in front of me."
Sabrina laughed out loud and glanced over to see him shedding his own shirt.
She flushed and looked away again, although Lord, she didn't want to.
Even a glimpse of him half dressed in expensive slacks with his shirt unbuttoned was enough to set her aflame.
"I know you're an influ—oh! Oh. I was going to say I know you're an influencer but you should think about being a model, but you actually do know how to model, don't you!
That towel picture I took! You knew exactly what you were doing! "
Luke actually cackled. "Yeah. Sorry?"
"Not sorry! But dang, mister!"
"Will you think less of me if I admit I took modeling classes?"
Sabrina looked over her shoulder again, eyes widening. "Seriously? Wow. It worked out for you." She looked away again hastily, because he'd been about to slide his slacks off. "Sorry."
"You're fine," he said easily. "But yeah, I did. I was really uncomfortable with the camera and I needed to get over it if I was going to try to do this whole online fitness leader thing. You can see it if you watch my early videos."
"I'd love to but now it might be weird for me to go look you up."
"Then I'll show you some." The bed creaked as Luke got on it, which made Sabrina decide it was probably safe to turn around.
And it was, if watching a gorgeous man in a thin t-shirt and sleeping shorts on the bed could be considered safe at all.
He got his phone, scrolled through something, and waved it at her. "C'mon, I'll show you."
Sabrina, unable to resist, crawled onto the bed next to him and folded her legs, leaning in to watch a video he pulled up. "Ooh, your hair's longer."