Page 98 of When Morning Comes Around

He leaned in to drop a kiss on her lips. Every time she repeated the wordsI love, his heart had beat a little faster. In his imagination he could hear the wordyoucoming after them. They were three words that he wanted to say to her. The time wasn’t right yet, but he didn’t think he’d be able to hold them in for much longer. For now, he chose three different words. “I always will.”

When they reached the steps that led up to the deck, Sadie sat down and wiped the sand off the bottom of her feet. She put her shoes back on and looked up at him with a smile.

“Are you ready for this?”

“I am, are you?”

“I’m looking forward to it. I’m looking forward to seeing my old friends and hopefully making a bunch of new ones.”

He smiled. “You’re not nervous, then?”

“Nervous? What about?”

“I guess I don’t know how you feel about social situations.” He gave her a wry smile. “This is the first time we’ve been out with the gang like this.”

She laughed. “True. I was thinking that myself when Terry and Nina suggested that we should come out tonight. You don’t know what to expect of me, do you?”

“No. Like I said, I didn’t know if you’d be nervous.”

“Far from it. I should probably tell you that the girls are looking forward to me coming since I used to be the life and soul of the party.”

He grinned. “Yeah?”

“Yeah, don’t look so surprised.”

“I am surprised, but in a good way.”

She raised her eyebrows. “You expected me to be a wallflower?”

He laughed. “No, I just didn’t know how you’d feel.”

She got to her feet. “Then we should get in there and see how this thing goes.” She looked back over her shoulder at him as he followed her up the steps. “You’re not a wallflower, are you?”

He laughed and swatted her ass. “Far from it. I was planning to be on my best behavior tonight, though.”

When they reached the top of the steps, she pouted at him. “That doesn’t sound like any fun.”

He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and started pushing his way through the crowd toward the bar. Not that he needed to do any pushing – people tended to get out of his way.

He grinned when Sadie looked up at him with a smirk. “What?”

She laughed. “It looks like people got the memo about the big man convention – people clear a path for you.” She jerked her chin to where Cal and Manny were standing with Terry and Nina. “And no one is standing too close to them, either.”

He had to laugh. “Cal just needs to scowl, and everybody scatters.”

“Everybody except Terry.”

“Yeah, she may be the only person he’s afraid of.”

The others turned to greet them as they approached. Sadie launched right into a conversation with Nina and Terry. He’d gotten to know the other two women a little bit since he moved here, it made sense to him that the three of them were friends.

He caught her elbow and cocked an eyebrow. “What do you want to drink?”

“I… Oh, look! There’s Damon and Jo.”

He turned and smiled when he saw them coming in through the door. “I told you they’d be here.”

“I’m going to go and grab us a couple of tables,” said Cal.

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