Mine, mine, mine.
And suddenly I was there, tripping over air and flying through space.
I don’t remember much after that. We cleaned up and fell naked into bed. Noah burrowed against me with one leg draped over mine and his head on my chest. I don’t think we spoke. Personally, I wasn’t sure I could form a complete sentence. But just as I was about to drift off, I could have sworn I heard the faintest whisper…
“Love you.”
11
NOAH
Holy fuck. Did I tell him I loved him?
No. That didn’t happen.
It was a dream.
Sleep claimed me completely before I could be sure, but I woke the next morning in a panic when I remembered our “meet the family” conversation.
What the actual hell?
Meeting a lover’s parents was daunting shit. And something I hadn’t done in—well…ever. I’d never once “met the parents.”
Stefan was my first and only real significant other, and that had been a completely secret affair. No one knew about us. Even after the dust settled, the most anyone could say was that we were “friends”…in quotation marks. The idea of bringing a boy home to meet my folks was so ludicrous. I couldn’t even imagine it. Yet, I was genuinely thinking about meeting Thomas’s folks.
And a whole posse of strangers who mattered to him or would be part of his life through marriage.
Very daunting.
But doable. This was an overnight affair he billed as a couple of meals with well-dressed strangers at the equivalent of a five-star hotel.
“I don’t do well with strangers unless they need a haircut,” I admitted the following morning over coffee.
“Me either…unless they’ve enrolled in one of my classes.”
“Hmm. What are the Remingtons like?”
I still hadn’t figured out why that name sounded personally familiar. I wondered if I had an old teammate called Remington.
Thomas shrugged. “I’ve never met them, but Sterling is nice.”
“And your parents?”
“My mom is easy to talk to. My dad is a little distant, but that works for me. If you can’t discuss finance or sports, he doesn’t have much to say.”
Well, I could talk sports. I could talk about anything with anyone for a short period of time.
The social aspect didn’t freak me out as much as the personal one did. I’d let myself get too attached already, and I had nothing of substance to offer. I wasn’t educated, I didn’t have a family, and my friends were nothing like Thomas’s. I was the same messy me I’d been for years. In my experience, parents didn’t like messes.
I had a ton of reasons to say no, but Thomas was hard to refuse. He was good and real, and he didn’t seem to notice or care that I was…broken. He wanted my company and maybe even needed my social savvy.
What an odd pair we were. Yet somehow complementary. If the ways I complemented him helped get him through a weekend he’d been dreading for months, I’d go. It was twenty-four hours, not a lifetime commitment, for fuck’s sake.
“I’ll do it,” I pronounced, thumping my mug on the white tile counter. “I’ll be your date.”
Thomas cocked his head, a lopsided grin playing at the corner of his mouth. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. But it’s just one date, right?”
He went perfectly still for a long moment. So long, I wondered if I’d said something wrong.
Thomas stepped into my space, ran his forefinger along my jaw, and pressed a tender kiss on my lips.
“Thank you.”
Damn, I could lose myself in all that warmth and kindness. All that untapped strength. I leaned into his touch, loving his soft gaze, the feel of his hand on my cheek, and the deep timbre of his voice. I loved the contrast between his gentle nature and his casual commanding side. I loved his quiet strength and unwitting bravery.
I loved him.
Oh.
Fuck.
Déjà vu hit me like a rogue wave. Holy shit. I’d said it out loud last night. It hadn’t been a dream and it was true. I wouldn’t bother lying to myself. I loved him.
But I wasn’t so sure that was a good thing.
Traffic was light for a Saturday afternoon. I leaned over the console and gazed at the panoramic ocean views as we approached Montecito, a quiet seaside town where mega-mansions perched on the hillside like soldiers guarding the Pacific.
We checked into our suite at a fancy five-star resort. I hadn’t stayed anywhere quite this lavish in ages. Our room had breathtaking views, fancy brocade furnishings, and a king-sized four-poster bed. I dumped my bag on the floor and gaped at the endless blue horizon.
“It’s so beautiful. How soon do we have to go anywhere?”
Thomas plucked a sheet of paper off the bed and wandered to my side at the window. “According to the itinerary, we’ve been given fifteen minutes to freshen up. Then we’re supposed to hitch a ride in one of the hired vans and meet in the great hall for a tour of the vineyard before dinner.”