Page 116 of Match Me if You Can

I swat at his chest and fake scowl up at him. “I never should have told you that.”

He captures my hand, tugs me against him, his lips coming to my ear. “Remember that I told you I’m falling right back?”

My heart pulses in my chest and I lift on tiptoe, brush my mouth over his.

Only he doesn’t let it stay a brush, he winds his hand into my hair and deepens the kiss, and he does it long enough that a throat clears loudly behind us.

“Come on, lovebirds,” Noble says from behind us. “We need to get going.”

Noble is heading out on a flight this evening and since we were meeting the Laurents here at the airport to say our goodbyes, he used the opportunity to drop his rental car.

He’ll be at our mercy until we drop him back off later on tonight.

Maybe I’ll make him arrange some more flowers, just for fun.

Muahaha.

For now, we’re heading to our last Ambrose wedding—or post-wedding—event since Jenny and Oakes head off to their honeymoon tomorrow.

This afternoon, though, it’s bowling and dinner.

What could go wrong with oiled lanes and heavy balls and that patented Ambrose competitive spirit?

Turns out.

A lot.

* * *

“Goddammit, Joan!” Steve bellows.

Right in the middle of my backswing.

Do they call it a backswing in bowling?

Hell, if I know.

All I do know is that Steve shouts right as I’m swinging the ball backward, thus right before I’m going to chuck it forward and throw it down the lane so I have to scramble to hold on to the heavy orb.

To not send it careening behind me.

I manage.

Just barely and not at all gracefully—and at great sacrifice to my manicure.

Something the snorts tell me must be a hilarious sight.

Straightening, I glare over my shoulder at the peanut gallery.

Ace and Noble burst out laughing.

Beck, who’s sitting next to them, smirks but doesn’t join in, and I point my free hand at him.

“He’s officially become my favorite Ambrose.”

Then I lift my chin, turn back around, and do my best at chucking the ball down the lane.

It rolls relatively straight (bowling isn’t my thing) and I knock down three…four?…pins.