Page 18 of The Story of Us
Alice giggled and pulled him into a warm hug. “Nate! Do you want to know a secret?” She grabbed the neck of his navy T-shirt and yanked him close. “I’m going to do very naughty things to your brother when I get home.”
Well, that was information he didn’t need to hear. As gently as he could, Nate twisted out of Alice’s grasp.
“How many drinks have you ladies had?” he asked.
“Not that many.” Alice fluffed her red hair before wandering away when a waiter walked past with a tray of fancy-looking desserts.
“There’s my favourite guy,” Bianca drawled as she wrapped herself around him.
Nate prised her hands off his neck, but every time he untangled one, it would land somewhere else. She was like an octopus.
“You gonna give me a ride tonight? I’ll make you a cowboy. Or maybe you want to give me your brother’s number. Unless that’s something you both might be into?”
“Charlie!” Nate barked.
His only stipulation for helping had been to make Charlie promise Bianca wasn’t going home in his car. Every day she messaged him about the profile she wanted to do or if he’d give her a private tour of Wattle Junction. Obviously, his radio silence approach to responding hadn’t worked.
He stepped back, the wall pressing into his shoulders.
“You like to be chased, huh? Gonna make me work for it?” She pushed herself into his space even further, alcohol heavy on her breath. One of her false eyelashes had come unstuck and dangled off her eyelid like a spider. “I know all about your reputation.”
Fantastic.Regret over his behaviour from his rookie season resurfaced. It’d been years, but he was still paying the price for how he’d reacted to everything that had happened with his college girlfriend. “Whatever you’ve heard isn’t correct. Not anymore.”
“You need to back up,” a husky voice said in his peripheral vision. Nate caught the toss of long, dark curls. He turned his head and swallowed.
Maybe it was the pale yellow dress made of floaty fabric that clung to her breasts, one strap listing to the side, exposing way too much smooth, tanned skin.
Or the dark eyes filled with fire.
Nope, it was definitely the way Eloise’s tongue darted out and how she dragged it across her full, plump lips.
“Hi,” Nate said like an idiot. But what was he supposed to say when Eloise was looking at him like she was going to kiss him?
“This one’s mine,” she said.
Hers? Wait. What?
Her hand reached up, cradling his cheek while the other pushed Bianca’s face away. If Nate’s brain could understand what was happening, he would’ve laughed at the shocked expression on Bianca’s face.
But he didn’t have time to unscramble his thoughts before Eloise dragged him into the corner of the room behind the makeshift bar. It was dark and shadowy and deserted.
“El—” he started, but he didn’t get a chance to finish speaking before she pushed up onto her toes and pressed her lips against his.
And then … vanilla. A hint of mint and berries. The warmth of her body against his.
It was everything he’d ever imagined and more.
Eloise ran her tongue across his lips, silently asking him to open, and the rest of the world melted away. All Nate could focus on was the way her fingers curled in his hair, how she sucked on his bottom lip, her fingers twisting, pulling him closer. She kissed him like she’d been doing it forever. Like they didn’t have secrets and this wasn’t forbidden. Like they could be happy together.
“Oy! What’s going on over there, you two?” Charlie yelled, his voice cutting through the noise in the room.
Startled, Nate pulled away, blinking until everything came back into focus. The heavy red and gold accents to the décor. Long tables covered in those small envelope handbags women took to more formal functions, open boxes and empty glasses. The hard set of Charlie’s jaw. The flat line of his mouth, his shoulders.
“What are you doing, Eloise?” Charlie hissed, helping a stumbling Sera across the room.
Eloise’s mouth dropped open, her lips extra swollen and glossy from their kiss and several super fucking unhelpful thoughts hijacked Nate’s brain. “He looked like he needed rescuing.”
“Baby, my tummy hurts,” Sera groaned. She was all sweaty and pallid. “I think it was the beef tartare.”
