Page 46 of The I Do Over

Knox took a sip of his wine before shaking his head. “You’re forgetting the fish and the steaks. We didn’t get takeout every night.”

“We got it more than I usually do, so let’s just leave it at that.” It certainly wasn’t gourmet, but Maddie knew she made some kick-ass Mexican food. Tonight she’d gone simple with a chicken enchilada casserole. It was one of those crockpot meals that didn’t require a whole lot of effort and that definitely worked in her favor. “I promise we can get takeout tomorrow if you really want it.”

“What I want is to take you out someplace nice for dinner tomorrow night,” he said, his tone low and serious. “I told you that last week. It bothered me that I didn’t do that while you were in Raleigh.”

“To be fair, there were so many other things we were dealing with.” Pausing, she took a sip of her own wine. “But I look forward to you taking me someplace delicious the next time I’m at your place.”

Putting his glass down, he let out a long breath.

“Knox? Are you okay?”

When he looked up at her, she saw some uncertainty there—something she realized was there far too often.

“So, um…obviously my friends—Xander and Daniel—know about the two of us.”

“O-kay. And that’s…good?” Honestly, she had no idea where he was going with this.

“Yes. It is good, but they’re both…well, Daniel’s married to Josie, who owns a wedding planning business with her two best friends, and Xander’s engaged to Daisy, who works for Josie.”

All she could do was nod because she still was clueless.

“When I went back to work, I was talking with Xander about…you know…us, and he mentioned how he and Daniel were starting to think about reworking our training stuff so that our weekends wouldn’t always be booked.”

Another nod.

“While we were talking, Josie and Daniel showed up and…” Pausing, he chuckled. “You have to understand something. Josie’s a little bold. She’s incredibly friendly and opinionated and I haven’t met anyone who can say no to her.”

“I take it that she now knows about us.”

“Exactly.”

She wasn’t seeing a problem with that and hoped he was going to get to the point of the story.

“Anyway, she wants to meet you.” He reached for his wine glass again. “I’m thinking she’ll probably arrange some sort of big group dinner thing and you’ll end up meeting everyone.”

“Everyone?” she repeated, confused. “You mean there’s more than just her and Daniel and then Xander and Daisy?”

“Um…technically if we were just going to be doing a SEAL Security thing, yeah. But knowing Josie, she’ll invite Lea and Skye—her partners in the wedding business—and their husbands. She makes everything a big thing like that and includes everyone. I’ve yet to go to a party or even a dinner at their place where there weren’t at least ten people there.”

“Oh.” That sounded mildly intimidating.

But…also a little positive since Knox was putting it out there for her to consider. If he was up to introducing her to his friends, then…they were heading in a good direction.

“We don’t have to, Maddie. I just thought I’d put it out there to you and let you decide.”

Reaching across the table, she squeezed his free hand. “Thank you for that. You know I’m not the most social person, but I think I’d like to meet your friends.” Then she paused. “Unless they’re against us being together and think it’s a bad idea.” Carefully, she pulled her hand back. “I would hate it if things got awkward and suddenly we had like…ten people telling us all the reasons why we should have left the past in the past.”

“Okay, first? Wow. That was quite the scenario you painted there,” he said with a hint of amusement. “No one’s going to lecture us about what we’re doing. Trust me. I think they’re just curious, that’s all.”

“But how can you be so sure?”

He sighed and shifted slightly in his chair. “Okay, if they were going to lecture, they’d do it to me in private. Xander already has a little, but we talked it through.”

“Oh,” she murmured, not liking the fact that his friends were possibly trying to talk him out of being with her.

“He wasn’t saying anything bad, Mads. You see…I gave both him and Daniel a lot of shit when they met Josie and Daisy. I mean, a lot of shit. With Daniel, I was just bummed because we were just out of the service and I couldn’t believe he was getting serious with someone so fast. I was happy for him, but selfishly, I wanted time to hang out with my buddies.”

Pushing her food around on her plate, she nodded.

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