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His eyebrows flicked up as if he were still unsure.

But then, right there beside the mall’s entrance, out in public in front of God and everyone…

He cupped my face and kissed me.

When he relented, I stared at him, a whole jumble of thoughts and emotions crowding into my head.

“Thank you,” he said again. “I don’t know how I’d get through any of this without you here.”

“Any time,” I said. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“You’re amazing.” He kissed me once more, and then we started for the parking lot, but he halted. “Wait. We rode in with Matt.”

“I’ll get us an Uber.” I took out my phone. After I’d booked the ride, I checked the time. “We’ve, um… You don’t have anywhere else to be today, right? For wedding stuff?”

Nolan’s eyes lost focus as he, I guessed, thought about it. Then he shook his head. “No. Schedule’s all clear after…” He nodded toward the mall.

“Okay. Well.” I slipped my hand into his. “Why don’t we spend the rest of the day doing something else?”

His brow creased with sudden worry, and goddamn, I realized what my suggestion had sounded like.

“I don’t mean going back to the hotel and fucking,” I clarified softly. “I mean, let’s go drive around. Show me places you grew up. Or we can go find a go-cart track or something.”

Understanding dawned, and the worry faded as he smiled. “Okay. Sure. Yeah. We can do that.” He squeezed my hand. “Let me grab a shower back at the hotel, and then we’ll go drive around.”

“Sounds perfect.”

Anything sounded perfect if it meant getting him away from Leann. Even if that hadn’t been a factor, I had to say—the idea of just driving around and chilling with Nolan?

I couldn’t think of a better way to spend the afternoon.

Chapter 26

Nolan

It didn’t seem possible to feel anything but anxious, angry, and even scared on a day when I had to cross paths with Leann. Just being in the same place with her was enough to turn me into a ball of panic and bad memories.

But there I was, a couple of hours after she’d shown up at the tux shop, enjoying a chill ride around my old stomping grounds with Riley.

A shower had rinsed away that skin-crawling feeling, and then I’d taken him through Redmond, Woodinville, and Kirkland, where I’d done most of my growing up. I followed the Bothell-Everett Highway and Lake City Way around the north end of Lake Washington, laughing as I pointed out all the dispensaries that hadnotbeen there when I was a kid.

“Can you imagine?” he asked with a laugh. “Being able to get weed, like…” He gestured at a neon pot leaf as we passed yet another dispensary. “Man, that would’ve been so much easier than buying it off other kids.”

“Don’t you still have to be twenty-one?”

“Well, yeah, but there’s fake IDs, adults who can be paid to go in…” He half-shrugged. “No different than buying cigarettes or beer, you know?”

“I wouldn’t know.” I shook my head. “I didn’t smoke anything.”

“No? Never?”

“Are you kidding? My school had one of those policies where if they found out you were in the same time zone as a party where someone smoked weed, you’d be booted off all your sports teams.”

“Ugh. Yeah, we had those, too. But my pothead ass wasn’t exactly worried about getting cut from varsity football.”

“Really?” I glanced at him, grinning. “Did you do any sports?”

“I did cross country and track in junior high. By the time I got to high school, I was way more interested in smoking pot and sucking dick, so—”

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