Page 26 of My Never
“HOLD ON!” the bus driver hollers, giving us only a split second for it to register before he slams on the brakes. Several of the guys up front ram into each other and crumble, but a hand snakes around my waist and pulls me backward onto the seats so that I don’t end up in the man pile. My heart is hammering as the bus driver hollers about drunk idiots jumping out into the middle of the street before asking if everyone is okay. A collective mass of groans and answers of ‘Yeah, we’re alright’ sound around us, but all I can concentrate on is the feel of a very masculine hand around my waist with another wrapped around my bare upper thigh, steadying me against the length of his hard body.
“You okay?” Mark whispers heatedly against the shell of my ear since it’s loud in here, and I nod my head.
“Thank you for catching me.”
“I wasn’t about to let you land all sprawled out on top of them.” His thumb makes a little circle on my thigh, and my breath hitches. “Damn, your skin is soft.” His jaw visibly clenches, and he clears his throat, sitting us up to be a bit more decent. As if he’s reading my thoughts, he pulls down the edge of my skirt to cover me from showing off my hot pink thong to the party.
“Thank you.”
“Of course. I don’t think anyone saw.”
“Except you.”
“Not even me. I could just feel the way your skirt was bunching.”
“Oh. Okay. Good,” I mumble, a tad embarrassed and flustered more than I care to admit.
“Yup.”
“You can let me go now.”
“Yup,” he answers again, not letting me go.
“Are you okay? Did I crush you?” I ask, wondering genuinely.
“Nope, and nope.”
“What’s wrong?” I ask, alarmed. Maybe I did hurt him, and he’s just being too nice to say anything.
“Ava, I’m trying not to picture you in a thong, okay? I’ll be fine, I’m just…struggling,” he mumbles out fast as if he wasn’t quite thinking before he said it. I snicker to myself because I realize that he got his hands on a tad more than just my thigh.
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s nothing to be sorry for, I’m just trying to reign it in and be a gentleman.”
So he’s having “ungentlemanly” thoughts now. Nice.
“Stop smirking at me like that.”
“Like what?” I press my hot pink lips together, feigning innocence, and he watches.
“Like you’re enjoying the idea of making me uncomfortable in front of all these people,” he mumbles, slightly agitated.
“Just enjoying as I watch karma finally bite your ass.”
“I’ll biteyourass if I ever get you alone.”
Wait. What?I look at him with wide eyes.
“You just keep pushing me, Ava.”
I swallow hard and climb up from his body in a haphazard rush to go check on the girls.
Back at the house, we all change into comfy clothes. The guys make a bunch of popcorn and the girls throw a ton of blankets and pillows on the floor and sprawl out. It’s not long before we settle on “Made of Honor” for the movie. When we get to a scene that has both, surprise surprise,Grey’s Anatomyactors in it, Jane can’t help but holler out, “Hey, Mark, now they only need you!”
Everyone gets a good chuckle at his expense, and he reaches down from his spot on the couch behind me and tickles the bottom of my foot, making me squeal because I can’t stand that. I turn from my belly and glare back at him, but when I see the heat simmering in his eyes as his gaze travels up my calves to my jammie-short-clad butt, I pause. He wants what he sees right now, and that’s me. His eyes lock with mine, and he shrugs like, ‘Sorry, couldn’t help it’.
I give him the stink eye, turning back to the movie, trying to distract my brain from thinking too hard about tonight and all the ways Mark has acted so differently around me. The way we quit hating on each other just long enough for the man and woman inside to perk up and notice each other. Can’t say I hated it. After it finishes, Colin turns on some action movie I’ve never seen before. It’s more for background noise than anything else. Sydney’s curled up on the couch sleeping against Colin’s chest while the guys all murmur quietly amongst themselves so as not to wake those sleeping. Jane and Holly are passed out cold in their places on the floor next to me.
