that what I’d said was the very last thing he expected from me. Which was fair.
After a pause, he said, “You… love me.”
“Yep.” I nodded. “Like I said, I know it’s kind of soon—”
“Just a bit,” he conceded. He was so hard to read. Did he find it funny? Had I offended him? He was a stranger, so why did I care that much one way or another how he received it?
“It was a dare,” Lauren squealed from beside me. “Sorry, we’re having a bachelorette party and I dared her. It’s all my fault.”
“Ah.” Liam folded his hands in front of his body and took us in. “So, Tori’s the soon-to-be bride. Which makes you her bachelorettes?”
“Oh.” I adjusted my tiara unsuccessfully. I knew it was cockeyed on my head and the glowing penises were having a real rager around my neck as their battery began to drain. “No, this was a dare.” I nodded toward where Bekka lurked behind me. “She’s the bride. I’m just a sucker for dares.”
His smile grew wider, as if this information pleased him, and my stomach did a little flip at the sudden flash of white teeth. “Which is why you followed me out here to confess your love.”
“Exactly.”
“Well, Tori.” He paused and tapped his chin in a hot college professor kind of way. “It is a little soon. So, please forgive me if I take a little longer to say the words back.”
I sighed dramatically. “I suppose I can be patient.”
“Good.”
I was smiling like an idiot.
He took one step toward me. “Do you live here?”
“In this hotel?” I asked.
He laughed, and oh—it was a rich, deep sound. Enough to make the warmth in my belly bloom into my chest. “No, do you live in Vegas?”
“No. I live in Idaho. Do you live here?”
“In this hotel?” he asked with a grin, echoing me. Oh, he was playful. I liked that.
“Yeah, in this hotel.”
“Sadly, no. But I live nearby and not in Idaho. So, I guess that means we are ill-fated lovers.”
I nodded, grinning. “Well, at least it was a great five minutes.”
“Must’ve been, since you confessed your love two minutes into those five minutes.”
“What can I say? When I feel something, I say it.”
“It’s true,” Lauren butted in. “She doesn’t shut up.”
I didn’t want to stop talking to him. But Katy was waiting for us and this was supposed to be Bekka’s weekend. I couldn’t very well abandon her to chat with this Liam guy some more. But I didn’t know how to say goodbye to him.
“This is where we part then,” he said, as if reading my mind. He placed his arm across his stomach and mimed a slight bow.
Fuck. Me.
“It was a pleasure, Tori,” he added.
Ugh. Why did 'pleasure’ sound so sexy rolling off his lips? “It was, Liam.” He gave me one last smile before he turned and started walking away. My heart pinched a teeny, tiny bit. I’d only spoken to him for a few minutes, but surprisingly, I was invested. And there he went, effectively destroying all of my inappropriate thoughts.
Against my better judgement, I opened my mouth again. “I hope I see you again,” I called after him.
He stopped and turned slowly. God, even his slow-motion spin did things to me that should’ve been illegal in the other forty-nine states. After a beat and another small smile, he said, “I hope so, too.”
It was then that I realized Bekka and Lauren had already returned to the bar, leaving me alone in the hallway. Liam tipped his head toward me and then moved toward the elevators.
I waited, waited, waited, for him to turn around one final time. And when he entered the elevator, I was rewarded with one final smile before the doors closed.
If this was a movie, I’d have clutched my chest and melted into a puddle of goo right there. But this wasn’t my night, I reminded myself. And this five-minute interlude was just that. I’d never see Liam again and I was okay with that.
Really, I was.
In fact, if I told myself I was okay with it enough, I’d soon start to believe it.
It was only five minutes.
It wasn’t like we had some epic cosmic love that ended abruptly.
So then why did it feel like I was closing the book to a story that had only just begun?
After a shake of my shoulders, I returned to the bar.
When I entered through the door, Katy was messing with Bekka’s hair—trying to convince her once again to wear