Page 19 of The ABCs of You & Me

TEN

SOPHIE

Foster is proving to be an incredible actor. I think I may be too, but only because he’s making it easy for me. When he slid his hand around my waist and rested it on my hip, leaning into him more seemed like the thing I’d do if this was real. Watching Edwin’s eyes track the movement and then the smile that he tried to hide sends a shiver of triumph through me. We are nailing this.

“So what do you do, Foster?” Nolan asks, grabbing a passing appetizer and tossing it in his mouth.

“I’m an educational assistant,” Foster replies, his thumb slipping under the edge of my dress where it opens at my hip. An entirely different kind of shiver runs through me this time.

“Cold?” he asks, moving his attention from Nolan and Edwin to me.

“Nope.” I smile innocently back at him.

“My cousin is an EA. You people are saints,” he exclaims.

Foster shrugs. “Just patient. I’m definitely not a saint.” And fuck me sideways, upside down, and right-side up because the little grin he includes has me thinking things a friend should not be thinking.

Nolan looks over at me and bounces his eyebrows. “Lucky lady!” Okay, so I’m not the only one who read a bit more into that.

I laugh, probably a bit too loud, before looking up at Foster to find those amber eyes already on me. He’s too fucking good at this. At this rate I’m going to be his first cult follower.

“Yes, definitely lucky.” I pull my lip back between my teeth, looking up at him through my eyelashes and he does exactly what I hoped he’d do.

His featherlight touch somehow reaches to the back of my knees as he pulls my lip free with his thumb again. “Only I get to mess up those lips, babe.” He grins again.Yes,I think,I want that.I just hope he never calls me Gregory’s preferred term of endearment again.

I somehow manage to keep it together and play along. “I do like when you do that.” We haven’t looked away from one another, and it’s as if the room has entirely faded away. Until Nolan or Edwin clears his throat. “Would you believe he bakes me cookies?” I say almost giddily, turning back to them.

I watch as Edwin does a full-body scan of Foster with his eyes narrowing. “No one that looks like you should be able to bake and be good in bed. It’s not fair.”

“Hello! If everyone could take their seats, dinner is about to be served.” The announcement saves us from further discussion on what else Foster is too good-looking for. It doesn’t stop me, however, from wondering just how good he is at all the things.

As we make our way back to the table my heart plummets. Gregory, always a gentleman in public, is pulling out his girlfriend's chair. Foster squeezes my hand again and as we reach our seats he pulls me closer, his lips settling next to my ear.

“You’ve got this, sunshine, and I’ve got you.” His whisper sweeps across my skin, sending more tingles to far more intimate areas than the back of my knees.

I draw back a little so I can look him in the eye. “I’m going to owe you cookies after this.”

“You haven’t met my friends yet,” he says, pulling my chair out. “You’ll probably be expecting cookies for life.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.” I sit, doing my best to keep my focus on him. I can feel the asshole’s eyes on me, and it turns my stomach. “Just no raisins. I had a bad experience as a child.”

I see his shoulders shake in a silent laugh as he sits next to me, sliding his chair a bit closer so he can rest his arm on the back of mine. Every movement he makes seems so natural, to anyone else it would look like he does this all the time.

“That time you sneezed while eating an oatmeal raisin cookie and a raisin got lodged in your nose?” he says it so casually, as if he didn’t just pull a memory from when I was ten out at the drop of a hat.

“You remember that?”

“Hard not to. Cass thought you were going to die.”

“She has always been the dramatic one,” I say as his finger trails over my shoulder, sending sparkler-tinged chills down my arm.Now who’s being dramatic?

“I remember Cass freaking out, then my mom running out of the house expecting to see blood everywhere or something and there you were, eyes watering and looking worried. She had you blow your nose really hard and out came the raisin.”

“Then Cass gagged for about half an hour.” The entire scene is becoming clearer now. “And you wanted to see it.”

“It was disappointing. All that fuss for what was essentially a wet raisin.” He tips his head back and laughs, and I am momentarily mesmerized by the way his throat moves. “I don’t think Cass has ever recovered. You were pretty chill, though.”

“Well, a wet raisin doesn’t really hold a candle to the sight of calves being born. That being said, it took all the joy out of eating raisins.”

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