Roman cried victoriously. “So there is more to share. I want to know everything.”
“Well, tough,” I said. “I’m not going to give you any more than that. It was glorious and that’s all you need to know.”
“Do you want to do it again?” Ginny asked.
“Yes,” I said honestly. “And I’ve also been thinking about asking him to be my date to Vanessa and Rhys’s wedding coming up. I’m just a little concerned that it might be too soon for Peter and me to be using plus-one’s on each other, you know?”
“Go for it,” Ginny said. “Peter is a gentleman. He’d be a great addition to have at the wedding. And he’d be able to meet your friends.”
“And you’d both have a free one-night stay at a luxury hotel,” Roman said. “Think of all the things you could do to each other in the bath and the pool and the shower and the—”
“Bed,” Ginny finished dryly.
I chuckled. “I just don’t want to spook him.”
“Don’t be silly,” Roman said with a shake of his head. “You’re overthinking this one, babe. Just go with the flow. Extend the invitation. I don’t think you’ll regret it. And just think, you could even join the mile-high club on the way there and start the trip off right.”
Ginny pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed. “You’re such a hoe, Roman.”
Roman leaned back in his chair and dragged his fingers through his bleached hair. “I know, baby. I know.”
The three of us giggled and I tried not to blush at the idea of sneaking Peter into one of those tiny airplane bathrooms for some in-flight entertainment. I wasn’t brave enough for such things, but it was a fun little fantasy.
I would save the hands-on activities for the hotel room.
Or the pool, like Roman said.
When did you get so naughty? I wondered as my friends teased each other across the conference table about past lovers and the best—or worst—places to have sex.
Chapter 21
Peter
Katie handed our boarding passes and passports to the young woman behind the check-in counter at our airline. She had blonde hair pulled back in a severe bun, much like all her coworkers up and down the length of the counter, and she wore one of those oddly shaped old-fashioned flight-attendant hats that had always reminded me of the paper origami hats.
We were successfully checked in and our luggage was weighed, tagged, and sent down the conveyer belt to be loaded onto the plane. When we finished up, Katie and I turned away from the counter and she looked from left to right before decidedly nodding to the left.
“The gates are that way,” she said. “Let’s get through security, and once we’re on the other side, we can grab a coffee or something to eat. Sound good?”
“Sounds good,” I said.
It had been an odd morning for me. When Katie invited me to join her at one of her best friend’s wedding this weekend, I’d jumped at the opportunity. Why wouldn’t I want to go stay in a fancy-ass hotel with the sexiest woman alive and enjoy a luxury wedding of the likes I’d probably never seen?
Then she told me it was in Los Angeles.
That changed things. The excitement in my gut had quickly faded from elation to dread as I realized that this meant I would more than likely have to bite the bullet and go see my father.
It wasn’t that I didn’t want to see him—or that I did want to see him—but rather, I wanted to bury my head in the sand and pretend that the life I’d always known wasn’t falling apart.
Being on St. John made it a hell of a lot easier to do that. But I knew as soon as I breathed that familiar smoggy Californian air that I would feel like I was home and the crushing weight of the reality I’d run from would return in full force.
I told myself it would be easier because I had Katie with me. However, there was no telling if that would be true or not.
I followed her through the maze of an airport until we reached security. We fell into line behind a family of three with a teenage daughter who looked as unenthused as most sixteen-year-old girls traveling with their parents.
The father wore a Hawaiian shirt and was meticulously going over everything they would have to remove and load into bins for security to scan. After his speech, which lasted a whole three and a half minutes, he asked his