buffet line, and I found my way over to the woman I’d been staring at the entire time. The woman in a nude and black lace dress that made me shiver with desire. Made me want to take it off and see the real skin beneath it.
When I eased up behind her, she leaned back into me as if she’d known all along I was coming. That I was there. I leaned down and whispered in her ear, “Are you really sure?”
She nodded, turning her head so our eyes and noses and lips were almost aligned. “More sure than I’ve ever been about anything.”
She kissed me, and I stilled. Unsure about how the room would react…the people who hadn’t seen the kiss I’d already given her. When she pulled back, her face was glowing, and I suddenly didn’t care. If it made her happy, to hell with everyone else.
“Come here,” she said, and she pulled me over to where her parents stood talking with Ginny’s grandmother and Cam.
It was Cam who frowned, looking at our arms tangled together, my hand on Ginny’s hip, and said, “Oh no. No, you don’t. We absolutely cannot handle even one more truth from any of you.”
Ginny laughed, and when I met her dad’s eyes, he was actually smiling. Smiling at Ginny’s obvious happiness as much as at the force of Cam’s words.
“Mama, Daddy, I’ve decided to take a semester off and go to Europe with Cole.”
Derek chortled, a deep gruff that made me grin back. Mia put her hand to her forehead and then tried to cover her smile as laughter escaped her as well. Cam rolled her eyes.
“Et tu, Brute?” Cam demanded, rolling her eyes. “You were my last hope!”
Derek bent over he was laughing so hard, and Mia was holding her side. Marina was even chuckling.
“I…I didn’t think you’d find this so funny,” Ginny said, grinning at their laughter.
Mia and Derek seemed to get a hold of themselves. “We’re sorry,” Derek said. “It’s just…been a week. I think laughter is the only way we can handle any more.”
“I’m sorry,” Ginny said, her smile dimming a little.
“I can’t believe all three of my children dropped out of school within a week. What did we do wrong?” Mia said, looking at Derek, her face now serious as the reality of what Ginny had said really settled in.
“I seem to remember someone just about Ginny’s age taking off on a road trip across the country with a complete stranger.” He said it softly, with love and emotion in his face, and I wasn’t sure if it meant that Mia had done the same to be with him, but I kind of suspected it did.
Mia proved my hunch to be true when she said, “You weren’t a stranger. Blake knew you.”
“Barely,” Cam snorted.
“Mayson and Grace know Cole,” Derek said, looking toward Ginny’s and my cousins.
Silence settled down over us, and I saw waves of emotions cross Mia’s face. A mother with all her baby birds flying from their nest. The moment must have been bittersweet.
“Will you be gone the entire semester?” Mia asked, choking a little over the words.
Ginny looked at me, and we both shrugged at the same time. “Not sure.”
“We have a concert in Paris on Valentine’s Day,” Derek said. “Maybe you could join us there?”
There wasn’t a reason we couldn’t plan to be in Paris, supposedly the most romantic city in the world, on Valentine’s Day. I could have thought of a lot worse places to end up. Ginny and I nodded.
“And you’ll go back to school in the fall?” Mia looked worried.
Ginny nodded. “I still want to graduate.”
Mia pulled Ginny into a fierce hug, saying quietly but so I still heard, “Just tell me you’ll eventually come back.”
Ginny nodded, and I swore to myself we’d do our best to meet that request, but I also had a suspicion the longer I was with Ginny, the more I wouldn’t want to lose her. That I was going to want our lives melded together completely. I wasn’t sure Tennessee was going to be where that life existed, but I also knew we didn’t have to make that decision right at that moment. We had years before we had to decide on a place to settle down.
For now, we would be together, marking items off her list. Maybe I could add a few new ones to it because I was damn sure there were some unpredictable and heart-pounding ones she hadn’t had there.
Derek wrapped his