I wondered if he was going to tell me he had a nice time and he’d call me. Like, as if we’d been on an actual date. Something inside me was telling me that feeling that way was still a bad idea, but in that moment I didn’t care.
He dropped my hand and I flexed, keenly feeling the loss of his touch. I glanced at his lips. I’d been wanting to kiss him for several hours. I rationalized that it was fine since I’d given myself a cutoff time—pretty soon this Cinderella night would be over and we’d turn back into pumpkins.
My heart began to hammer hard in my chest, like it was saying bad idea, bad idea, bad idea over and over again, but I ignored it, instead focusing on the swooping feeling in my stomach that made me giddy and excited.
I took a step toward him.
And he took a step back.
He cleared his throat. “So, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow at whatever big, secret thing Sadie and Dan have planned,” he said awkwardly. There was a distance in his words and I wasn’t sure what had changed. He sounded dismissive. As if we hadn’t been having a really nice time together.
As if I hadn’t been about to make a move on him.
That sensation in my stomach turned sour, sinking down to my feet. I’d already made enough of a fool of myself tonight. There was no reason to prolong the experience. I dug through my purse looking for my keycard. I thought he’d do the same, get out his card, go into his room, and leave me alone with my uncomfortable embarrassment.
Instead he just kept standing there like he wanted to say or do something, but I wasn’t interested in whatever that was.
I got more and more frantic, not able to find where my keycard had gone. I let out a sound that was a cross between a sob and desperation.
He reached out and circled his fingers around my wrist. “Wait a second. What’s wrong?”
What was wrong? Seriously? We’d just had a magical, if slightly drunken, night together, where I’d had the best birthday ever and I wanted to kiss him and he’d looked like he’d been disgusted at the thought.
I wanted to shake off his hand but found I didn’t have the strength to do it, even though I felt like an idiot for all the warm fluttery feelings that I’d been having for him. That had probably been due to the alcohol and not his supposed interest in me. Because he definitely wasn’t into me. He couldn’t have made that any clearer.
“You can tell me,” he said. “Whatever it is.”
That irritated me. Why was he acting like we were friends? He wanted something from me and even now, when I was humiliated, he was still trying to get it. Wanting me to open up and tell him what he had been waiting so patiently to hear.
Instead I thought I’d tell him something that would definitely make him run away. “My mother wants you to give her grandchildren.”
He looked completely confused. “Like, buy them?”
“No. Remember when I took that picture of you and denied it? My mom asked me to do it and then decided you were handsome and smart and we should make babies together.”
If that didn’t send him running straight for those beautiful green Hawaiian mountains, I didn’t know what would.
But instead of being freaked out, he seemed amused. “You talked about me to your mom?”
He was so missing the point. “No, not in the way you’re thinking. I mean, yes, I did talk to her about you, but no, not like that. She asked if there were any good-looking, eligible men at the wedding—”
“And, of course, you immediately thought of me.”
I wanted to stamp my foot at him. I settled on pulling my wrist out of his grasp. “You were the only man I’d spoken to besides Dan, and he’s the groom, so don’t flatter yourself.”
“It’s far too late for that. You already did. And so did your mom by insisting you pick me to father your offspring.” He leaned against the wall with his arms folded. I briefly wondered how much time I’d get if I brained him with one of my shoes. So arrogant.
“I mean, if I’m going to be your baby daddy I should probably know your middle name first. But we can talk about all of that when you’re more sober.”
This was not a joke. “I’m plenty sober.”
“Agree to disagree. It sounds like your mom’s the interfering type, huh?”
Camden didn’t deserve an explanation, but I just couldn’t contain myself when somebody else recognized my mother’s insanity. “You can actually hear the whir of her helicopter blades as she hovers over me.”