There are six couples—Kline and Georgie, Thatch and Cassie, Wes and Winnie, Quince and Emory, Milo and Maybe, and Trent and Greer—and one single guy named Harrison, along with Kevin and Julie, who seem to be having no trouble fitting right in. All but one guy from the book club is here, as he’s apparently away getting one of his nightclubs up and running.
Lifestyles of the rich and famous, am I right?
“This is just like Hope Floats,” Thatcher Kelly, one of the biggest human beings I’ve ever come into contact with, says as he sways his strikingly attractive, cleavage-bearing wife in front of him.
She scoffs and yanks from his arms to turn around and give him the evil eye. “This isn’t like Hope Floats at all, T-bag. You’re just going through a Sandra Bullock phase.”
“It is like Hope Floats,” he argues immediately, his back going straighter. “Ruby was all closed off before, just like Sandra. Cap’s a mediocre Harry Connick Jr., but the basic themes are there.”
“Ruby wasn’t closed off per se,” Julie jumps in, trying valiantly to defend me. I feel the corners of my lips turn up into a smile as Kevin snickers.
Cassie shakes her head as the group breaks out in smiles, and Cap’s lips run from my neck up to my ear in an exhilarating jog to whisper, “Ruby, Ruby, Ruby.” He sighs. “I love you.” My heart jumps in my chest, and I wrap his arms tighter around me.
I never imagined an embrace could feel this right—this complete.
“Where’s the little girl with the glasses, then, huh?” Cassie demands, winding up into a tirade, Julie’s comment ignored. Georgie pulls Julie to the side and whispers to her, and I think it’s in an effort to tell her not to take their self-absorption personally. They do this to everyone, I think I see her mouth as Cassie continues. “Ruby’s not a single mother going through a divorce from an asshat. She’s a badass lawyer-in-training. This is way more like Legally Blonde than Hope Floats.”
Thatch actually takes a step back from the group in affront. “Legally Blonde? You’re joking me, right? That movie is way more bouchie than our girl, Ruby. And Cap would have to seriously improve as a human to even come close to my boy Emmett.”
“What’s bouchie mean?” Cap whispers in my ear, just as the blonde I now know as Winnie asks the exact same question aloud to the group.
Everyone ignores her, though, too busy either arguing or observing the argument to answer, and she starts to panic. “Hello? Bouchie? Anyone? Woman with a teenage daughter here. Someone help me out.”
I smile. “I think it just means sort of high maintenance in a tacky-ish way.”
She breathes a sigh of relief and smacks Georgie on the shoulder. “Thank God. And thank God for Ruby since no one else is paying attention to me!”
Georgie rubs at her shoulder as Kline scoots her away subtly. Protecting his woman.
They are freaking adorable.
I stand up straight, which pulls my body slightly away from the heat of Cap’s, and he immediately sucks me back in with tightening arms. “My Ruby,” he says adorably, and I have to shake my head.
“You’re going to have to let me go at some point, you know,” I tell him quietly. “My bladder’s not made of steel, and eventually, with all of this champagne, I’m going to have to pee.”
“Me too,” he says cheekily, waggling his eyebrows. “We can do it together.”
I laugh out loud and shake my head. “No, no, we cannot. We’re not there yet, doll.”
He smiles at my use of his word and turns me around to face him. He slides his hands in at the sides of my jaw, all the way until his fingers are tangled in my hair, and he angles my head to kiss him.
His lips flirt with mine, tiny, light kisses that make my belly drop and flip over on itself.
He’s just getting to the good part—the serious contact and addition of his tongue—when a frazzled voice calls out from the door and makes us both pull back.
“Did I miss it?” Cap’s sister, Lena, asks breathlessly, and a whole band of people behind us breaks out in laughs.
Cap
“Aw, sweetheart,” Harrison says, stepping away from the group. “You missed it by a mile.”
Lena’s face falls, Harrison steps forward, and for the first time since Ruby agreed not to hate me forever, I step far enough away to lose the heat of her body.
But the separation is necessary if I don’t want to put her in the line of fire. “Step back, sister-chaser!” I shout, putting a hand to Harrison’s chest to keep him from coming any closer.
“Cap,” Ruby says behind me, a hint of surprise coloring her seriously sexy voice.
The band of misfits in the back just laughs.
I turn around to look Ruby in the eye, now that I’m considerate and loving like that. “It’s okay, doll. He’s a menace. I’m just doing a service to society.”