Page 21 of I'd Never Date my Best Friend's Brother

“Will do, Evie.” He extends his hand to Evie and then to me, a smile stretched across his face. “I’m looking forward to it.”

We wave and then head back to the parking lot.

“Sean and Jessica are going to love this so much.” Evie’s initial annoyance at Sean and Jessica shoving us together is gone as the excitement of planning this event takes hold.

I don’t say anything as I stick my hands in my coat pocket and let a small smile creep on my face. I can feel Evie’s eyes on me, and glance up. When my eyes meet hers, she quickly looks away. Her cheeks flushing.

I follow her to her car door. “Your car is over there.” She points, worry lining her expression.

“I know,” I say, continuing to follow her. She unlocks the car and puts her hand on the handle, only to bump into mine. She pulls her hand away like she’s been burned.

“What are you doing?” Her eyes are wide.

“Opening your car door for you.” Every nerve ending in my body lights up as I feel how close her body is to mine. I can smell the subtle hint of vanilla lingering from the baking she was doing earlier.

With how determined she was to get to her car, I’m pretty sure she had every intention of just waving goodbye and driving off as quickly as possible. But I wasn’t about to let that happen. The last two hours talking about love and weddings have made me want to show her that when I told her I was in love with her yesterday, I meant it.

That means doing whatever I have to do to win her back, even when she acts like she doesn’t want to be around me.

She freezes and just stares at me. The corners of my mouth lift up. Wow! I just want to lean in and kiss her, but as much as I want to, I’m not going to. Right now, she’s like a deer in headlights, and me moving too fast will have her skittering off.

I have to be patient, so I force myself to stand still.

“Thank you.” She looks away and slides into the front seat. She puts her keys in the ignition but I still don’t close the door. “Jamie?”

When her eyes meet mine, I hear her breath catch. My grin spreads further across my face. And my heart races.

“Nothing. I just wanted to look at you one more time before I closed the door.” With one last smile, I gently close the door and get into my car. Before backing out, I turn to look at her one more time.

She’s staring at me with her mouth hanging open. The grin on my face turns into a full-blown smile that makes me think my cheeks might crack.

I think this went pretty darn well toward thawing the ice between me and Evie.

“The extra mistletoe was a nice touch.” I hear Sean and Jess laugh on the other end of the phone.

“It was my idea.” Jess giggles.

“Okay, seriously, what have you done with my sister?”

“Jess has always been passionate.” I can hear the grin in Sean’s voice. I also know that if I don’t interrupt them, they will start kissing again. The constant affection would be annoying if it weren’t my best friend and sister, but it is my sister and best friend.

“Okay, okay. Can you please stop the kissing? These group calls with my sister about my love life are bad enough. Knowing the two of you are kissing on the other end is almost more than I can take.” I hear Jessica’s phone ring in the background.

“That’s probably Evie calling. She’s not happy about the matchmaking.” Jess laughs.

They both laugh before I hear Jess answer her phone.

“You’re really going to love the event at the ice rink, Sean. Jacob had everything you said you wanted, and he’s going all in,” I say as I try to distract myself from the fact that Jessica is on the phone with Evie right now. “Though I think we need to change up the mistletoe.”

“What? You don’t think everyone having to kiss when they get on or off the ice is a good idea?” Sean's voice echoes throughout my car.

“Nope. It’s overkill.” I can hear Sean groan on the other end of the phone. “Plus Evie will never get on the ice.”

“Oh, good point! I’ll talk to him about changing up the locations; it's not a big deal at all.” He brushes it off like that’s a minor detail. “What did Evie think?”

My lips turn up as I recall her face when she initially met up with me. “Besides her being upset about the whole matchmaking thing?”

“What gave it away?” Sean asks, genuine surprise in his voice, and I laugh out loud.

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