cotton stuff, and they reclined way farther back. There was plenty of leg room and the trays came up from the armrests, not from the back of the seat in front.
“Are these our seats?” I asked dumbly.
Katie nodded. “Sure are, handsome. Come on. Sit down. Vanessa and Rhys refused to let us fly anything other than first class.”
I took a seat. For a guy of my size, flying had never been all that comfortable. But this? This was much better than what I was used to.
“I think I’m going to like these friends of yours,” I said.
Katie laughed and nodded. “I think you will, too. And they’ll like you.”
I didn’t know if that was important to her or not. Had she invited me on this trip just so she didn’t have to go to the wedding alone? Did she want me to meet her friends and her brother? Was it a matter of convenience, or did she see this thing between us becoming something real? Something concrete?
Something I might have to change all my plans for.
After takeoff, we ordered more drinks. Katie sipped white wine, and I drank beer, and we laughed and joked about the in-flight entertainment before Katie pulled out a deck of cards she’d packed in her purse to kill time.
She kicked my ass.
By the time the flight landed, we both had a bit of a buzz going, and it took us some time to collect ourselves out of our seats and make the long trek from the plane to baggage claim, where our luggage was predictably delayed.
Katie leaned against me and rested her head on my shoulder while we waited. I wrapped an arm around her and held her close, and she closed her eyes.
I caught her smiling before the baggage-claim buzzer sounded, a red light flashed, and the belt started to turn.
Our bags were among the first off. I pulled them off the belt and we made a quick getaway outside to find the personal car Rhys had sent for us to take us to the hotel. The driver waited with a sign that read “SMITHE,” and we loaded our bags in the trunk, slid into the back seat, and snuggled up against each other as the airport disappeared in the rearview mirror.
The hotel was an hour drive from the airport. Katie fell asleep against my side and I played mindlessly with her hair and rubbed her back.
All the while, I wondered how I’d ended up there.
I wasn’t the guy who got the girl. At least, I never had been. I was the guy the girls waved at and accepted a drink from at the bar before they bumped into the guy they wanted to go home with. That guy always had his shit together. He’d be nicely dressed, and he wouldn’t be clumsy like me. Where I was more likely to knock girls over in bars or spill my drinks on them, he was more likely to twirl them around the dance floor and charm their panties off.
Literally.
I didn’t want to be that guy. I just wanted to be the guy the girl might look twice at.
And Katie had certainly looked twice. Hell, she’d looked over and over. And she was still here.
Feeling a sense of warmth and peace spreading through me, I kissed the top of her head, rested my cheek upon it, and closed my eyes for the rest of the drive to the hotel.
Chapter 22
Katie
The hotel was a Moroccan-inspired paradise nestled on the Californian coast. In my mind, it didn’t hold a candle to the El Cartana, but I was biased. Regardless, it was a beautiful, sprawling property boasting impressive palm trees, white stucco architecture, and plenty of stained-glass-window features that painted rainbows on the walls and floors of the resort interiors.
In a word, it was magical. I understood perfectly why Rhys and Vanessa had chosen it as a wedding venue. It was romantic, serene, and unique, and as Peter and I made our way down the wide, winding corridor toward our oceanfront room, I admired the art on the walls and the expensive Turkish carpets underfoot that lined the wider passages with staircases and elevators.
Peter shouldered our bags as we hooked a corner. “I can only imagine how much it would cost to have a wedding in a place like this.”
“More than my salary plus a hundred grand, I’m sure.”
“Damn,” Peter breathed.
I was glad I invited him along. At first, I’d been a little nervous to ask him and was