“You bet.” She listened to Farrah’s heels clicking on the floor. Farrah paused by the door.

“I’ll call tonight, okay? Send you pics and we can giggle over the dress,” Farrah said. The door squeaked as she went to open it.

Ressa squeezed her eyes shut. “Sounds like a plan.”

“Perfect . . . so . . . what’s his name?”

“Tr . . .” She clamped her mouth shut. Then, slowly closing the locker, she looked back at Farrah, standing with her back against the door. “You’re a sneaky bitch, you know that?”

The other woman looked unfazed. “A girl only gets that look in her eye when she’s met somebody. Now, let’s get to the good part. What’s his name?”

Swiping a hand down her skirt, Ressa nibbled her lower lip for a second. Then she just plunged ahead.

“Trey Barnes.”

For a second Farrah gaped at her.

Then she started to laugh. “Oh, okay. That’s funny. That’s . . .”

She stopped laughing when she caught sight of the look on Ressa’s face. “Wait a second . . . you’re serious?”

“Yeah.” Ressa braced herself.

“The Trey Barnes. As in the sexy motherfucker I’d die to get my hands on?”

“You’re getting married,” Ressa pointed out, trying to ignore the curl of possessiveness that tugged at her.

“I mean if I wasn’t.” Farrah waved a hand through the air like that was just a given. She glanced around the lounge and then moved closer, eyes narrowed by retro-chic glasses. “I thought you had trouble getting him to talk to you.”

“Ah . . . it wasn’t that. Exactly.” Ressa blew out a breath. “I need to get out there. The manager here isn’t quite as laid back as my old boss.” She used the most charming smile she had in her arsenal.

And it didn’t do jackshit.

“Oh, no, you don’t,” Farrah said, catching Ressa by the elbow. It would have been funny—Farrah barely topped five feet and soaking wet, she might weigh one hundred pounds. Ressa, on the other hand, was five eight and although she wasn’t constantly on the diet binge, she hadn’t been below one seventy since high school and she generally had to fight to keep it at one eighty.

While Ressa might outweigh and outreach her, there was nobody who could out stubborn the other woman.

“What?” Exasperated, Ressa tugged her arm free and propped her hands on her hips. “What more do you want to know? Look, I told him you’d like to get him in here, although I don’t know if it will happen. He’s not big on doing anything where he lives. That’s a huge part of it. He’s pretty private. I wouldn’t call him shy, but . . .”

“I don’t care about that!” Farrah’s eyes rounded and she advanced on Ressa, poking a finger at her. “You’re seeing him and you didn’t tell me.”

“I’m not . . .” She stopped, blew out a breath. “We’re not. Not exactly.”

“What’s that mean?” Farrah gaped. “Son of a bitch—are you sleeping with him? Please, please, please tell me you did—tell me you fucked him and that he can fuck a woman the way I think he can.”

“Would you drag your mind out of the gutter?” Huffing out a breath, she turned away so Farrah wouldn’t see the answer in the rush of color in her cheeks. “It means we’re not seeing each other yet.”

It wasn’t a lie. And she hadn’t answered Farrah’s other question, either.

It worked. She hoped. Moving over to the watercooler, she got herself a cup of water she really didn’t need and took a sip before looking back at her best friend. “We . . . well, we talked a lot in New Jersey.” It wasn’t a lie. Not really. They’d just talked a lot in between bouts of amazing sex. “But I . . . I didn’t want to try to pursue it. He . . . did you know he was married?”

Farrah’s eyes softened. “Honey, his wife died. A while ago. Didn’t you know that?”

“It’s not like I’m one of the Trey stalkers on that Pinterest page. I don’t follow his every move the way you do.” Although she had to admit she had a certain interest in some of his moves now. Very specific moves. Mouth suddenly dry, Ressa took another sip, focused on the wall in front of her. “And yes, I know that. Now. He was still wearing his wedding ring.”

“Oh.” Farrah glanced toward the door as voices drew near. “Oh, sweetie.”

“Look, it’s not . . . I don’t think he’s still hung up on her. It was rough when she died. She was pregnant—he almost lost his boy, too.” Then she shook her head. “This isn’t a good time to be talking.”

“No, it’s not. Look, I know it was bad. You were . . . well, that was back when things got bad with Kiara—you had your hands more than full. It was a big splash in the news around here for a while. Anyway. So, forget me calling. I’m coming by after my fitting. We’ll talk.” Farrah nodded. “I’ll grab Chinese. You grab a bottle of wine.”

Ressa winced. “I don’t know . . .”

“Are you going out with him tonight?” Farrah cocked a brow.

“No, but . . .”

“Then I’m coming over. Because we are not done.”

*   *   *

Trey had made the shift from being a night owl to learning how to focus in the morning once it was clear that afternoons were a bust, because that was when Clayton really seemed to want to make the most chaos and noise imaginable. His son might have started school, but he suspected nights and afternoon were going to be just as manic as before.

Half lost in a world that involves silken skin and soft sheets and shaky sighs—a book, not a dream about Ressa—he didn’t hear the first time the doorbell rang, or the second.

But by the third, when he was trying to convince the hero and the heroine they couldn’t have sex . . . yet . . . the jangling noise managed to cut through his concentration.

Scowling, he eyed the clock, looked back at the open project on his computer.

His hands were numb at this point.

He’d managed to get a couple thousand words written on the next Forrester book. But he didn’t want to go answer the damn door.

The bell rang again.

With a sigh, he shoved back, a little off-kilter as he realized how late it was. He’d set the alarm on his phone—not that he expected he’d ever lose track of time that much, but he wanted to make sure he was on the road well before school let out.

It was after one. He had to leave in another fifty minutes.

That much time had passed. The silence in his house was almost eerie.

He wasn’t used to that much quiet in the middle of the day. By now, there should have been at least a hundred demands to go swimming, to go to the beach, to go to the Nauticus—or even just riding his bike—something.

But all day long, it had been quiet.

Muscles in Trey’s neck were stiff, letting him know how much time it had been since he’d moved, and he rolled his head from one side, to the other.

The doorbell had fallen silent and he breathed out a sigh of relief. Nadine. Had to be. The only other people who’d hang that long were his brothers and they’d call. Besides most of them had keys. Except Seb, and he’d had one; it had just gotten lost.

He peered through the Judas hole and then groaned silently, resting his head against the polished wood.

It was Nadine.

And she was still out there, busily writing on a little notebook.

He opened the door, because in the back of his mind, he could hear Ressa’s voice. The longer he waited . . .

She jumped as the door swung inward but he forced himself not to apologize, not to invite her in. He just smiled. “Hi, Nadine.”

“Oh . . .” Her hand fluttered up to her throat, toying with the necklace there. “Trey, you . . . you startled me. I didn’t think you were home. You took so long to answer.”

“I was working,” he said, shrugging. “I get caught up and don’t hear the door.”

A nervous laugh escaped her. “Of course.” She stood there, her hands clasped at her waist, an expectant look on her face.