Page 99 of Leave

Nolan blinked, holding the coffee cup I’d shoved into his hand. “The—oh. Um.” He shook himself and turned to his brother. “Hey, man, do you still need us?” He gestured at me with the cup. “There’s some fuckery with our rental car that we need to—”

“Oh, uh.” Matt looked at Sophia. “Baby, can we cut Nolan loose? They need to…” He flailed a hand at us. “Something with their rental car?”

Sophia took on a deer-in-the-headlights expression. I suspected she was just overloaded; I did not envy brides. After a second, though, she seemed to snap out of it. “Sure. Sure. I… We have your measurements and everything, right?”

Nolan nodded. “Yeah. And whatever color you two pick out for the vest is fine by me. Obviously.”

“Right. And I guess you and Matt look enough alike that I can see how it looks on him and—” She waved a hand. “Anyway.Yeah. Yeah, we’ve got it.” She offered a tired smile. “Thanks, guys.”

“Don’t mention it.”

And with that, we were free to go.

The tux shop was near the mall’s exit. We made it about three steps outside before Nolan had to stop and lean against the wall. He closed his eyes as he pushed out a long, harsh breath, and I thought his knees might be shaking.

I touched his arm. “You okay?”

He didn’t answer immediately. After a couple of breaths, he opened his eyes, looked right at me, and—

Pulled me into a tight bear hug.

I returned the embrace, relieved to feel the tension melting out of his back and shoulders.

“Thank you,” he whispered.

“Of course.” I stroked his hair. “You okay?”

He exhaled again, long and heavy. Drawing back, he looked in my eyes. “I’m way more okay than I would’ve been if you hadn’t…” He gestured back the way we’d come.

“Good,” I whispered. “But we won’t be able to avoid her completely. Not with everything coming up.”

He visibly shuddered and dropped his gaze. “I know. I know. But at least I didn’t have to be around her when I was changing clothes.”

My stomach flipped. I’d had a one-track mind—get Leann the fuck away from Nolan—and hadn’t even reached the part about why Nolan was in that shop in the first place. Though the guys did have privacy when they were changing their pants or something, they were taking vests and jackets off out in the open, and I couldn’t imagine Leann keeping her goddamned trap shut. Not while Nolan was stripping off even his outermost layers of clothing.

“Shit,” I breathed.

Nolan cocked his head. “What?”

“I…” I shuddered myself. “It didn’t even occur to me that you were changing clothes. I just wanted to get her away from you.”

He blinked, then relaxed even more. “I appreciate it. Believe me.”

“Oh, I do.” I swallowed. “Do you want to get out of here?”

“Yes. As far away from here as I can get.”

“Well, Okinawa isn’t on today’s itinerary, but we’ll be there soon.”

That got a laugh out of him. “Not a moment too soon.”

“Right?”

He held my gaze, something unreadable in his. “Do you, uh… Do you care if people”—he gestured around us—“see us?”

See us? They could already see us. What did he—oh.Ooh.

My heart jumped into my throat, and I shook my head. “No. No, I don’t mind at all.”

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