Page 38 of Beached Wedding

It was silly trashing, but I forgot to laugh as I noticed a card on the bed.

“Too soon?” He came up behind me.

“Hmm? No.” I showed him the card on the bed that was no longer sprinkled with rose petals. “We had turn-down service and room-service breakfast tomorrow. What do you want?”

We filled out the card and left it on the latch outside the door.

“This package was a very thoughtful gift, Fox. Thank you,” I said sincerely. “As consolation prizes go, I’m feeling less gut-punched.”

“Good. Because I thought these things in my wallet were coupons for discounts, but they’re actually things I paid for.” He drew the keycard folder from his wallet and fingered through the slips of paper. “That was the massage.” He threw it away. “This is the board I reserved for Shane, but we also get snorkelling gear for two. You get two free cocktails at the pool.” He gave me the voucher.

I smirked. “Not drinking for a while?”

“Possibly never again. And a dinner cruise.” He showed me the slip. “On Monday. We missed it. That blows.”

“You really don’t know what day it is. That’s tomorrow.”

“But I flew out on Sunday.”

“It’s still Sunday.”

“Good God. Talk about a long fucking day.”

I chuckled, then, “Can I ask one more favor before we call it a night?” I finished unpacking and showed him my turquoise baby doll. “I brought this because I didn’t think I would actually need pajamas.”

He stared at it, looked kind of fixated, and swallowed loudly.

A fist of heat clenched low in my belly. A slow blush crept through me, climbing higher and higher until my breasts were tight and my throat constricted.

“I, um, would prefer to sleep in a T-shirt if you have an extra?”

“Oh. Sure.” He turned away to paw into the duffel. “I thought you wanted to trade. Blue isnotmy color.”

I chuckled weakly and opened one of the dresser drawers for him, inviting him to unpack into it. He did, offering a blue T-shirt I recognized.

“That’s Shane’s.”

“I grabbed his bag. Remember?”

I had forgotten, but shook my head. “I’ll figure out something else.” I looked for my yoga shorts.

“He’s not going to care if you borrow his shirt.”

“You really need to quit loaning out things that don’t belong to you, seeing as you can’t even share a bar of soap.”

It was supposed to be a chirpy little joke, but he dropped his hand to his side, shirt dangling from his loose grip.

“Are you serious right now? We’re going back to the hair clip?”

“Forget it,” I muttered as his tone took me right back to that morning when I’d had to lock myself in Shane’s bedroom to hide my tears.

“The package was open and there were still two more in it. It was right there on the shelf. It was exactly like the toothbrush I gave her from the drawer. Were they made of elephant ivory? I don’t understand why it was a big deal.”

My blood pressure rose despite my best efforts at keeping this as meaningless as it ought to be. The house had been a fairly communal living space, probably because it wasn’t something the men were planning to keep. It wasn’thome. Friends slept on the sofa all the time and both Fox and Shane were pretty relaxed about loaning tools or equipment or vehicles.

“I couldn’t get them in Australia,” I muttered.

“But you hadfour. Jasmine used it for five seconds. Were you worried she had lice? What?”

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