Page 80 of No Judgements

“No,” he said. “They’re going to have to learn that when we have our adult time, dogs have to wait outside.”

I found this remark interesting. “Oh, really? Are we going to be having adult time together again in the future?”

He set aside the water glass and pulled me to him. “I don’t know about you, but I hope so. You see how I slyly caused you to miss curfew using the irresistible power of my sexuality?”

I pulled away from him, realizing he was right. “Damn it.” I hit him with the closest pillow. “Now I’m going to have to spend the night here! What about Gary?”

“I already told you, Nevaeh will look after him.”

“What about your aunt? She’s going to wonder where I am.”

His smile was cocky. “Trust me, Bree. No one’s going to wonder where you are. They all know exactly where you are.”

I could feel myself blushing in the candlelight. “I don’t need this entire island knowing my business.”

“Better get used to it,” he said, with an evil laugh. “It’s called living in a small town.”

I tried to hit him with the pillow again, but this time he ducked. “We didn’t even get any dinner,” I said. “We’re going to starve to death out here.”

“Would I let that happen to you?” He got up, found his shorts, and put them on, sans underwear. “I grabbed a couple of Ed’s steaks before we left. I’ll throw them on the grill right now, and we can finish up that bottle of wine I opened.”

I stared at him. “You what?”

“I grabbed a couple of steaks from one of Ed’s coolers today before we left. It will only take a few minutes for me to grill them. How do you like yours, medium, medium rare?”

I hardly knew how to respond. “You knew I’d be missing curfew and staying for dinner?”

“I didn’t know.” He opened the bedroom door, causing an eruption of dogs. “I hoped.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Time:10:10P.M.

Temperature:75ºF

Wind Speed:6 MPH

Wind Gust:0 MPH

Precipitation:0.0 in.

Of all the places I ever thought I’d be the night after one of the most powerful hurricanes ever to hit the Florida Keys, sitting beneath the stars on Drew Hartwell’s deck, eating freshly grilled steak, was not one of them.

But there I was, a dog on either side of me, and Drew Hartwell seated right across from me, dining by the light of what Drew had informed me—since I’d never seen it before, and so hadn’t recognized it—was the Milky Way.

“The Milky Way is our own galaxy, made up of billions of stars,” he said, as he poured more wine into my glass. “Normally you can’t see it around here because of light pollution. Man-made light at night prevents most of the population of the U.S. and Europe from seeing it.”

“Wow,” I said.

I didn’t mind that he was mansplaining the Milky Way to me, since I didn’t know anything about it. Also, I was a little bit drunk from the wine—we were on our second bottle—and it turned out he cooked a really good steak... just the right amount of salt and pepper, and no other seasonings—and a decent baked potato. He’d kept a little cooler himself, and there was cold butter for the potatoes as well.

Of course, there was also the fact that I was falling in love with him. Or that I’d maybe already fallen in love with him. Who knew when? It had probably happened the moment he’d stepped up and saved Socks from Rick Chance.

Or maybe it had happened before that... that day Leighanne had thrown that saltshaker at him, and he’d responded by doing exactly nothing. Who knew?

Daniella was going to be so disappointed in me when she found out. You weren’t supposed to fall in love with the guys you slept with, especially the first guy you slept with after a bad breakup, and especially guys who lived on Little Bridge Island. They were just supposed to be guys you messed around with for fun. You never fell in love with them, and you certainly never entertained ideas about changing all of your life plans (such as mine were) for them.

I’d broken all the rules, and now I was sitting here, like an idiot, by the light of the Milky Way, eating the guy’s steaks with his happy, well-fed dogs pressed all around me, listening to him talk.