Chapter Seventeen #2
So far, the reception had been a dream. Everyone listened to him as he gave directions on where to stand, when to look, smile, etc.
No one was drunk – Charity must be thrilled about that – despite the free-flowing champagne.
The dance floor was filled from the moment the band began playing.
The bridal party had done a much-practiced dance routine that he’d switched to video to record without a missed step.
Even the weather had cooperated. It was warm, yes, because it was August, but the humidity had kept itself hidden and no one was wilting or sweating like a working farm animal when the outdoor shots were taken.
In all, this was one of the nicest, easiest weddings they’d worked in a while.
He hadn’t thought about anything other than the job he was doing all day.
He’d texted the hospital once during a break and received a reply that his mother was doing well with her pain, had no outbursts, and made no threats to walk out of the unit all day.
He said a silent thank you to the heavens for that.
“I’m ready. Hey, afterward, when we’re done, you wanna grab something to eat? Maybe...hang out for a bit? Talk? I can give you an update on my mother.”
Cripes. He sounded like a nervous teenager asking a girl way out of his league to prom.
Get a grip, O’Brian.
“Sure,” she said after a moment in which his breath decided to take a holiday without him.
Relief passed through him as he stared down at her smiling face.
In the next moment, confusion covered it as her mouth dropped open when something over his shoulder caught her attention.
He turned.
“What’s he doing here?” he asked before he could stop himself.
Smiling broadly, Tom was making his way down the hallway toward them.
“I-I...don’t know,” Charity said. Surprise laced through her voice. She folded her hands together in front of her, a gesture he knew meant she was anxious. He took a step closer and planted himself like a barrier in front of her.
“Hey,” Tom said, a happy grin shining on his face. “Surprise.” He lifted his hands out to the sides and fanned them like jazz hands. His eyes glazed over Kolby and settled on Charity. When he stepped around him, it took everything in Kolby not to counter the move and bar the guy’s way to her.
Tom slid a hand over one of her bare upper arms, gave her a gentle tug toward him, and bent to kiss her. He was aiming for her mouth and an overpowering growl snarled up from deep down within Kolby at the thought this man was going to touch her lips.
For some reason, though, Charity lifted her chin and turned her head in the opposite direction, so the kiss wound up on her cheek instead of her mouth.
Her eyes flew to Kolby’s face, then flicked to Tom’s as he pulled back.
She looked...embarrassed was the only description that fit her beetled brows and flushed cheeks.
Tom’s grin dropped a few degrees.
“A surprise it is.” Lifting her lips in a gesture anyone, even someone who didn’t know her, would see as fake, she took a step back, forcing him to drop her arm or get hauled along with her. Not surprisingly, he moved with her. “What are you doing here?”
“I finished my project and came free early. Then I realized I missed you,” he slid his hand up her other arm, caging her between them, “so I thought I’d drive over and take you out to dinner.”
Realized he missed her? What a tool.
Kolby never had to realize he missed Charity when he wasn't with her. He simply did.
“But I’m working.” She shook her arms and broke free of his grip. Tom’s brows tugged together. “I texted you last night that I was busy all day.”
“Yeah, I know. But you said you come free around sixish. Yes?”
“Y-yeah, but—”
“It’s almost five now, so I figure you’ve got about another hour, then you’ll be off duty.”
She nodded, a gentle tick pulling at her jaw.
“So, when you finish up, we can go get something to eat. You usually go home and crash after an event, so I know you don’t have any plans, right?”
Before he could stop himself, Kolby said, “Actually, she does. With me.”
Both of them turned to him with dueling expressions. Surprise and a touch of condescension puckered Tom’s face as his squinted gaze dragged from the top of Kolby’s face, down his body. Charity’s was something else.
If he had to put money on it, he’d bet she was angry. The corners of her mouth tightened to form half commas bracketing her cheeks, and her lovely eyes went hard and narrowed as they settled on him. He could read the silent message in them: what are you doing?
“Charity’s helping me with something,” Kolby told him.
Tom turned to her. “Is that true? You’ve got plans? With...?” He thrust his chin in Kolby’s direction.
Her breath hitched a bit before she replied, “Casual ones.” She speared Kolby with another steely eye.
Then she lit back on Tom when he said, “Well, good. If there’s nothing definite, we can have dinner.” He moved closer, his hands circling her arms in, to Kolby’s eyes, a proprietary fashion.
Charity hauled in a breath, then let it out before she replied.
Kolby’d witnessed the move many times when she was trying to calm herself, a karate breathing technique she’d told him that she’d learned eons ago.
Usually, though, it was when a guest, or part of the wedding party was being obnoxious or worrisome, or something wasn’t going according to plan with an event.
Charity was a control freak to her core, something he really did admire about her.
To his mind, she probably, if not definitely, hated surprises because it stripped her of that control.
He didn’t like them much himself, but was more adaptable to change than she was.
For this guy to just show up without warning was a red flag in Kolby’s book that meant he was a little more domineering than Charity would have liked.
He wondered if she saw it the same way.
“Tom,” she said, her voice firm, deathly clinical in its delivery and devoid of warmth. “I know we haven’t been able to see one another as much as we’d like to lately, but I have to tell you, I really don’t like surprises.”
Yup. He was right. Apparently, Tom didn’t understand or know that about her. Or if he did, he didn’t care, which was worse in Kolby’s mind. That red flag was flapping in the air around them.
“And surprise visits when I’m working are especially upsetting since they’re distracting and disruptive.”
The man’s expression changed again, the smile disappearing from his face.
“I have a job to do, and I need to focus all my attention on it.”
“Okay. But you’ll be done in an hour,” the man whined. Actually whined. Kolby’s estimation of him dropped even lower, which considering it wasn’t high to begin with, was laughable.
“Yes, but now you’re here, without any warning.
I don’t have time to, to...” she flapped a hand in the air, “entertain you or keep you occupied.” She glanced toward the ballroom, where the band had begun playing again.
“In fact, just standing here talking to you is taking me away from my responsibilities.”
“You were talking to him when I arrived.” He hooked his thumb over his shoulder at Kolby. Another whine. The guy really was a tool. “Wasn’t that taking you away from your job?”
Her lips thinned. “No,” she said, drawing the O out for a few beats, “because our conversation was work related.”
Tom digested that. Then, his face changed again, his good humor returning, “I don’t need to be entertained, Charity. I can go sit out in my car and wait until you’re done. I don’t mind. Waiting for you, I mean.” He leaned in closer. “I’ve missed you.”
Kolby had to check the eye roll that wanted to dance in his eyes. The guy was a whiner, a controller, and smarmy with it. Probably thought saying something like that endeared him to Charity.
It didn’t.
“You could,” she said with a nod, “but I’m really not in the mood to go out. I wasn’t exaggerating when I said I’m exhausted after an event. I’m barely hanging on now, and I still have a dozen things to oversee. And they’re not going to get done standing here, talking.”
Take the hint, pal.
“We can get take-out, then. Bring it back to your place.” He shrugged and slipped his hands into the pockets of his jeans. Jeans that were frayed at the hems with the knees thin enough to split any moment.
The guy was presuming an awful lot. Charity hadn’t shared much about their relationship other than they’d met a few times, he’d provided a ride for her back to town from Concord, and that he’d floated the idea of them sleeping together.
Not enough interaction to his mind to think she’d just go back to her place with him without a scheduled plan.
He knew her control issues wouldn’t allow for that kind of spontaneity.
She sighed again. “Tom, I’m not—”
“I really want to spend some time with you,” Tom said, his voice dropping a few notches as his hands wound up her arms again.
Charity blinked a few times.
He'd heard enough. Moving into the guy’s eyeline, he said, “Look, pal. She said she was tired and didn’t want company. Read the room and back off.”
Tom’s spine snapped. “Excuse me?”
“Charity’s got work to do, and you’re interrupting that. You should leave like she asked. Now.”
Tom’s eyes went wide, his jaw dropping open, then slamming shut and clenching. Through tight lips he said, “Who the hell are you to talk to me like that? You don’t know me or anything about me. Or us.” He waved a finger between him and Charity.
“I know enough to see you’re upsetting her.”
In his periphery, her blue eyes flashed with mounting anger, and her perfect bow lips pinched into a thin line. It didn’t take a genius to know she was getting more and more pissed by the moment.
“Look, pal,” the stress of the word might have cowered a different man, especially when Tom’s hands dropped from her arms to fist at his sides.