Page 83 of Last Fall

“You know you do one or the other,notboth?”

She shrugged. “I wanted to make sure you got themessage.”

“The astronauts on the space station got your message,” Lauralaughed.

Erik whispered, “You still sure you want metostay?”

After spending every night together for a week? Yeah, fat chance I was letting him out of here whether my friends liked it or not. “Ofcourse.”

He played with my hair while he studied my eyes. “I don’t want to make anyoneuncomfortable.”

“Don’t worry,” Lindsay said loudly. “We bring our husbands sometimes. All we require in exchange is that they make breakfast. You do make breakfast,right?”

We did not force them to make breakfast, although they all enjoyed cooking for us and we greatly appreciated theirsacrifice.

“Oh, I make breakfast. Prepare to be amazed,”Eriksaid.

“I will be appropriately excited,” she said. “Now go to bed you two. You lookexhausted.”

Since I didn’t feel exhausted I took that as code for:Please go make our romance writing dreams come true and bang your boyfriend before you’re too tired to take advantageofhim.

And who was I to say no to that? “Well thenwe’reoff.”

But Erik patted my leg. “Hold up. I need to go grab my bag out of the truck. I’ll berightback.”

Which left me alonewiththem.

“You’re gonna, right? Right?” Laura asked with very bouncyeyebrows.

“Maybe. I don’t have acrystalball.”

“But you’re not denying that it’s on the table,” Alexis mumbled, eyes still closed. “Which means you’re ready. Which means if Mr. Hero Material is up to the task then you are totally making sweet, sweet lovetonight.”

Was I that obvious? Did I care? “Mr. Hero Material, huh? Does that mean you think this works?” One evening wasn’t enough time to know for sure, but it was plenty to get a gutreaction.

And I trusted these ladies guts when it cametolove.

I got three sets ofthumbs-up.

“Are we doing thumbs?” Alexis asked, eyes stillclosed.

“Yes,” Alexandra replied, reaching over to hold Alexis’sarmup.

Alexis popped up her thumb. “He’s awesome. He’s sweet. He is totally nuts about you. I say you do this. Him?Whatever.”

“He’s coming back,” Lindsay hissed and everyone attempted to looknormal.

Which of course meant no one looked normalatall.

“You ready, Darlin’?” Erik asked as he strolled intotheroom.

“Good night everyone. Have sweet dreams,” I said with a wavegoodnight.

We picked this house because it had two master bedrooms on opposite sides of the house, plus four other bedrooms. We tried to rotate who was forced to share rooms and beds and I was eternally grateful that two months ago at our last retreat I’d bunked with Mary, which meant that this week I got one of the mastersuites.

I led him to the back of the house and down a hallway. My room wasn’t huge but it had all the necessary pieces: a king-sized bed, a nice bathroom, andprivacy.

Oneweek.

---