Diamonds Are Forever - Brooke St. James Page 0,28

him while you guys eat," she said. "We'll go get some more of Aunt Tess's eggplant."

I got in line behind my cousin, Tara, and Drew followed me. I showed him the ropes of the buffet, and we served ourselves. Tara asked Drew where he was from, and then others chimed in, and in that conversation, it came out that he was the Senator's son. I got a few conspiratorial looks from family members, asking me if I was interested in him, but no one made it obvious. They all treated him like he was my friend, which was a relief to me.

It made for a good environment—one where Drew seemed relaxed and could be his easy-going self. More than once, during the course of the afternoon, he pretended to get hurt in some funny way for Mac's entertainment.

Our family was laidback, and Drew was cool enough to fit in like he had always been a part of it. He talked to everyone, and they talked to him. They discussed boxing, and lawyering, and owning a hardware store, and all the other things they did on a daily basis.

It came out that Drew's parents owned a house in Galveston. I knew he had spent the night here, but it didn't fully register because he kept referring to it as "the camp" so I wasn't quite sure that he was going to an actual house. Drew explained where it was, and we were all familiar with the neighborhood. His family had a beach front home that was up on high peers. I had a friend who lived in that neighborhood when I was growing up, so I had been there a lot.

I said I was surprised I didn't run into him before, and he said that his parents only bought it a couple of years ago, when they heard about the construction of Palm Beach.

Drew was the center of most of the conversation at lunch. I was the oldest, and Drew was a few years older than me, so all of my cousins were enamored with him. My parents seemed to like him, too.

We spent a while eating and visiting before a few people mentioned that they needed to leave. Because of that, we decided to go ahead and sing and eat the birthday cake. The dining room was filled past capacity when we gathered around the table to sing the birthday song.

Some were standing, but Drew and I were sitting at the table, shoved-in close to everybody else. There were so many extra chairs around the table that they were basically one long curved bench instead of separate chairs. I was close enough to Drew that the sides of our legs were touching. I tried not to notice, but it was impossible.

My uncle mentioned the three people who were celebrating a birthday and said the song was meant for all of us. They sang, and people looked all around, smiling at each other and the birthday people. I liked that I wasn't the only one celebrating a birthday. It made me feel better that it wasn't all eyes on me. Even still, I felt a little shy as they sang.

I was smiling when I performed the nervous, absentminded gesture of rubbing my own thighs. I didn't even mean to do it, but without thinking, I just slowly ran my hands from my hips toward my knees.

There was so much chaos and noise in the room that no one would have ever seen my fingertips touch the side of Drew's leg. I hadn't meant to touch him, and the contact surprised me. I kept my hand on my own leg, but I quickly moved it where I was no longer touching Drew's. I wasn't sure if my heart was racing because of the birthday song or from my closeness with Drew. I smiled, looking around casually at everyone. All of this was happening in the span of seconds while the song was being sung.

There was a big, loud, jumbled bunch of words when we got to the part in the song where you were supposed to say the name of the birthday boy or girl. Some people said one name, some people said another, most people tried to fit in all three names in a row. It got really chaotic for a few seconds when that happened, and everyone laughed afterward. It was during that chaos that Drew reached over and took my hand. It was the same hand I had touched