The Bookworm's Guide to Faking (The Bookworm's Guide #2) - Emma Hart Page 0,29

and a book or three. My idea of a party was accidentally having too much wine with my dinner at Bronco’s and ending up on the karaoke machine, then spending the next two days hating myself because hangovers at twenty-six were not the same as twenty-one.

In related news, I had a habit I needed to break before I hit thirty, because I bet hangovers then were even worse.

“We can leave,” Seb said after a few minutes of silence. “We’ve done the dinner and everything else.”

I skirted my gaze toward him. “But the wine is here. And after the day I’ve had, I need the wine.”

Maybe I wouldn’t learn.

He held up a finger and summoned the bartender again. He rushed over, drying a glass, and leaned in to Seb. Seb said something in a low voice, and the bartender nodded with a smile before he stepped back.

“What was that?”

“Drink up,” Seb replied to me before taking a long drink of his beer. “He’s sending some to our room so we can go.”

I opened my mouth but nothing came out.

“Holley, you’re tired. I can see it. You’ve had a long day, and if you want to go back to the room, put on some sweats, and read your book, then you can do that.” His eyes met mine, and in them I saw nothing but earnest truth. “Let’s go, okay?”

“Okay.” I finished the last mouthful of my wine and let him take my hand and lead me away from the bar. We wove through groups of people until we reached his dad, and he grabbed his attention for a moment.

“We’re going,” Seb said to him. “Holley’s tired.”

“Did you get your car sorted?” His dad, Ben, asked me.

I nodded. “It was towed this afternoon. It’ll be ready on Sunday morning.”

He smiled, and I was struck by how alike he and his son were. They had the same eyes—their smiles always reached them, making them seem even brighter than they were. “Good,” he said. “Go and rest. And I promise I’ll try and stop May gossiping,” he finished dryly. “At the very least, I’ll cut off the champagne.”

“Thanks, Dad.” Seb gave him a weak smile and all but dragged me from the room and out into the much quieter hall.

I blew out a long breath. “Oh, sweet silence.”

Chuckling, he pulled me over to the elevators. “You’re welcome. Dad will talk to her and rein her in some.”

“He couldn’t have done that three hours ago?”

“You’d think.”

The elevator dinged, and I tugged my hand out of Seb’s. His skin was far too warm and his grip far too tight for me to feel even remotely comfortable with that level of closeness, mostly because I actually liked how it felt to have my hand in his.

The elevator took us up to the floor that housed the suites. There were four on here—we had one, May and Ben had the second, and Spencer’s parents had the third. The fourth was reserved for Spencer and his brother-slash-best man for tonight, and tomorrow, it would just be his brother’s.

We stepped out of the elevator, and a trolley was already outside our room. It wasn’t the one we’d left, because that one hadn’t held four beers and a bottle of wine in an ice bucket, plus a bunch of snacks.

Seb wheeled it inside, leaving me to shut the door, and I went over to inspect the snacks.

Cheetos. Pretzels. Popcorn. M&Ms. Hershey’s.

And a tub of chocolate ice cream.

“Can I get this to my apartment, or…?” I looked up at him. “Popcorn and ice cream? This is heaven right here.”

Seb looked up at me, his lips pulling to one side. “I told them to send a selection of junk food. Apparently, they took me literally.”

“I don’t care how they took you,” I said, grabbing one of the pristine white bowls. “They put a woman on this. No man could effectively grab these snacks from the very vague guidelines of ‘junk food.’”

“Hold on.” He pulled his phone from the pocket of his pants and held it over the cart.

“What are you doing?”

“Taking a photo,” he said, leaning back. “So if you ever ask me for junk food, I know exactly what you mean.”

“Nah. They’re missing Sour Patch Kids.” I shrugged and put a spoon in my bowl, then grabbed the salted popcorn. “There we go.”

“You’re taking all the popcorn?”

“Did you want some?”

“No.”

“Then yes, I’m taking all the popcorn.”

“You were taking it anyway, weren’t you?”

I kicked off my heels, sending them scattering across the living