Page 28 of Weston

“The next night, I wanted to impress you, so I took you to some fancy restaurant. I planned to pull out all the stops and make you fall head over heels for me.”

“Did it work?”

“It was a disaster,” he admitted with a wry grin.

“Oh, no! What happened?”

“Everything that could’ve gone wrong did.” Wes arranged the pile of pillows behind him and leaned back. “First off, the restaurant lost our reservation and it was packed with over an hour wait. It was September, but humid as hell, so I suggested we find somewhere else to eat instead of standing outside.”

Ellie settled in, getting comfortable. “I have a feeling this is going to be a good story.”

“We can laugh about it now. But, then?” He rolled his eyes. “What a mess. Every restaurant was crazy busy, so we ended up grabbing a greasy pizza from this place near campus. They accidentally put mushrooms on it instead of olives.”

Ellie screwed up her nose. “I might not remember much, but mushrooms? Yuck!”

He grinned. “Yeah, same. So we picked them all off and ate it, anyway. Then we went for a walk and got ice cream cones.”

“What flavor ice cream?” she asked, wanting to absorb every single detail.

“You got your favorite—mint chocolate chip. And I got peanut butter chocolate. Halfway down the block, they were melting so fast, it was comical. We had to keep licking and ended up making a mess.”

Ellie chuckled. “Then what happened?”

“A lightning storm from the humidity came out of nowhere and it started pouring. We’d been wandering aimlessly andtalking, so we made a mad dash for my car, but it was too late. By the time we reached it, we were soaked. There was no point in getting in, so I just grabbed you and kissed you right there in the middle of the storm.”

“Our first kiss,” she murmured. “That sounds so romantic.”

“The moment I had you in my arms and our lips touched, I knew my life would never be the same. That kiss told me everything—that you were going to be mine and we were going to spend the rest of our lives together.”

God, she wished she could remember. “That must’ve been some kiss,” she murmured, smiling.

“Yeah, it was,” Wes said. “We always joked that lightning struck our hearts that night.”

Emotion swelled inside of Ellie. “And after the kiss?” she asked softly.

“We got in my car and it wouldn’t start.”

She burst out laughing. “Why am I not surprised?”

“The battery had died.”

“So we walked home?”

“Eventually.” He sent her a devilish smirk. “We decided to wait the storm out and, uh, climbed into the back seat.”

“Oh!” Her cheeks grew warm. “We didn’t, um…”

“Have sex? No, not yet. But we did get to know each other much, much better.” He was grinning like a fool now and Ellie was pretty sure she didn’t need to ask what they’d donein the back seat. Clearly, it had been enough to realize their compatibility and chemistry were strong.

“I have to say I’m a bit relieved to hear I didn’t give it up on the first date.”

Wes chuckled. “No. You waited until the second.”

“What?” she screeched.

“Just kidding. We waited until your birthday.”

“October 2,” she blurted out.

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