“We?” Gideon said, and I blushed.
“I just meant—”
“Lila’s already been a big help with my plans for the website,” Cole interrupted, and I was grateful he’d taken the attention off me.
“Shall we try it out? Have some wine and snacks?” Brady asked.
“Sounds good.” I settled on a plush blanket on the throw, and the guys sat down, too. “What are we having? Marshmallows?”
Brady threw a pillow at me while Cole groaned. Gideon actually laughed, though. Normally, it seemed like the stick lodged up his butt prevented him from doing that.
Soon, we all had wine and a shared tray of cheese and crackers. Gideon had done something so that the lights in the tent were lowered. It created an intimate, and quite frankly, romantic atmosphere. I had a feeling that in the winter, this tent was going to give the honeymoon suite a run for its money—if it ever got done.
The men were telling me about the plans for the honeymoon suite now. It was two rooms, neither of which—they assured me—smelled like cured meat anymore. And when they were done telling me about the finishing touches they planned to add, and the cozy furniture they planned to order, talk turned to the summer they’d slept out there.
“Every night?” I asked.
“Nah,” Cole said. “Just when Gran thought we were laughing and talking too loudly late into the evening.”
“So yeah, basically every night,” Brady said, and we all laughed.
“Did you bring snacks and stuff out there?”
It was Gideon who answered. “Yep. No wine—though once we found a case of beer that had been forgotten in a shopping cart outside the grocery store. Remember how sick we were the next day?”
“It was an epic hangover,” Brady said.
“I’m pretty sure the night before was epic, too. If only I could remember it,” Cole said.
I grinned. “You guys were all in high school that first summer Gidon spent out here, right?”
“I was just about to enter my freshman year,” Brady said.
“So did you ever bring any girls out here?”
“No,” Cole said, sounding offended.
“No,” Brady said at the same time, but he sounded regretful.
We all looked at Gideon. “None that you know of.”
This time, the pillows were thrown at him. He put his hands up in self-defense. “There were plenty of girls in the town who wanted to get their hands on the new guy.”
I stared at him speculatively. I believed what he said, not because he was a particularly truthful person in general, but because he had the body to back up his words. Despite his personality flaws, he was pretty much the epitome of tall, dark, and handsome.
It took a conscious effort to look away from him. Something about this intimate setting was making me reevaluate these men… and the tendency to forgive and forget was there, too. I’d have to be careful about that one.
We drank more wine and talked more, and eventually, my eyelids began to droop. I didn’t know if it was because of the fresh night air of the wine.
“I’m getting sleepy,” I said.
“There are pillows everywhere,” Brady pointed out. “Pick one and rest your eyes for a moment.”
It sounded like a good idea to me. I swung my legs out to the side and started to stretch out.
Instead of a soft pillow, my head encountered a hard hand instead. “Not there,” Gideon said hastily.
“What?” I twisted my head to look up at him.