Page 99 of Some Like It Hot

I’ll give them a thousand dollars if I have to. But I have one more quick thought. “Do you have a passport? I’m sure you can use that instead.”

Her eyes light up. She’s in full makeup already, just planning on dressing and touching up her hair at the venue.

“I do,” she says. “My mom took me on a cruise to Mexico for my twenty-second birthday. Have you ever been to Mexico? It was really beautiful. I went through two entire tubes of sunscreen though because I burn so easily.”

There it is again. The wander.

I redirect. “Do you know where the passport is?” I ignore her other comments.

This is the first time I’ll have spent two nights in a row with Elise and I want her to enjoy herself, not be fretting about getting there on time.

“Yes! I think.” She dashes over to her closet, which affords me a fantastic view of her breasts threatening to spill out of her bra from the movement.

Bloody hell. I can’t allow myself to be distracted either.

“I have a box with important documents. It’s in there because I haven’t used it in years. I think. I mean, why would I move it?”

That is an excellent question, but I don’t rule the possibility out.

Now her ass is sky high in her black panties as she bends over and rustles around in the closet. “It’s in here! And oh. So is my driver’s license. That was smart of me.”

I grin before I quickly school my features.

God, this woman is delectable.

“Brilliant, love. Then we’re all set.”

My phone dings. It’s a series of attachments from my assistant with all the necessary information.

“I have the address for the venue.”

“I guess I should get dressed.”

“As much as I love you out of clothes, yes, that’s a great idea.” I take her suitcase off of the bed and drop it on the floor, pulling the handle up.

It seems wise to remove it from her view or she’ll unzip it and start going through her clothes again to ensure she hasn’t forgotten anything. I know she hasn’t because she was completely confident the night before. After a month of dating Elise, I feel like I know her really well.

She still wavers sometimes between apologizing for her disorganization and shrugging it off as who she is. I’ve never had an issue with it. None of us are perfect, or even someone else’s perceived version of perfection. Relationships are about meeting the other person where they are, and I hope that I’ve done that for Elise. She has done that for me. She never presses me about the fact that I have to go back to London or what that means.

What it means in my mind is simply that there will be periods of time where I don’t get to see her or Aidan in person but that I can hop on a plane and return to Chicago for work or just because I want to.

By then, Blake will be living in the woods in his cherished cabin.

Which is a shame, really. Hell, I know that’s what he wants, but the four of us work well together in my not-so-humble opinion.

With varying schedules and busy careers, we don’t get to spend as much time together as a foursome as I think Elise would like, but it also means that whenever she wants company, she has some, even if it can’t be all of us.

I take the suitcase into the living room and set it by the front door. I rummage through her kitchen, grabbing a couple packets of the trail mix I know she likes, and filling her jumbo water bottle up with fresh water from the refrigerator. I snag her a bottled iced coffee as well and put them all into a grocery bag.

Then I pop my head back into the bedroom. Elise is dressed in tight stretchy jeans, high heel boots and an ice blue fuzzy sweater that shows off the shape of her breasts perfectly.

“You look gorgeous,” I tell her truthfully.

She laughs. “I have a hair net on.”

“So? It’s not covering your face. I can’t wait to see you up on stage.”

“Thanks, Simon.” She takes a deep breath and adds, “I wish Aidan and Blake could be here.”

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