Page 82 of Best Man
Whoa.He was willing to make things that official? Her head felt woozy.
She giggled happily. “I guess I am. Which means you’re my boyfriend?”
He bobbed his head emphatically. “Yes, of course.”
She held up a finger. “If you cheat on me, Sasha—” she started to warn.
He vehemently shook his head. “Paulina, I will never.”
“Okay. Six weeks, then.”
“Six weeks.” He took her into his arms. “Now Ireallywant to kiss you.”
Her insides twisted. She wanted to kiss him, too—it feltwrongnot to, after all of this—but she could see people staring at them through the bus windows.
She bit her lip. “We can’t. People are watching us.”
“Ugh. Torture,” he grumbled.
“Yup. Now imagine how six weeks will feel,” she said, testing him.
“We will get through it,” he said. “It will be torture, yes, but it will also fly by. Besides, we will stay in touch.”
He might not know it, but his constant reassurances were worth their weight in gold. These were the moments that would get Paulina through the next six weeks.
Everyone else had boarded the party bus. They slowly walked towards it, savoring their last precious few moments together.
“How should we tell Piper and Jax?” she wondered.
“We have plenty of time to figure that out,” he answered.
“True.”
“But we should probably let them enjoy their honeymoon together before we tell them,” he said with a wink.
She giggled. “Also true.”
The closer they got to the bus, the slower they walked. Inevitably, though, they ran out of space, and their time together came to an end.
He turned to face her. “Well.”
“This is it,” she said.
“Yeah …” He wrapped her up with one long, tight squeeze. And then she had to let him go—for six weeks.
“Bye, Paulina. I’ll talk to you soon, okay?”
“Bye, Sasha.”
She watched him take the first couple steps up the bus stairs—but before he made it all the way up and disappeared down the walkway, she yelled after him.
“Hey! Sasha, wait!”
He turned back. “Hm?”
He stood on the first step, and she stood on the earth, exaggerating an already major height discrepancy.
“That other thing you said to me in Russian—what’s it mean? You never told me!”
