Accidental Bride(9)

“You don’t need to see. You need to be seen,” Heidi replied with a grin.

“I don’t care. I’m not going to go around seeing blurs in the interest of being hotter. This is as hot as I get.”

“You look great with your glasses,” Veronica said, leaning against the bar and waving the bartender over. “Half the guys here are leering at you as it is.”

Surprised, Kelly glanced around the room. While Veronica had been exaggerating, she hadn’t entirely been making it up. There were at least a few men who seemed to be staring at her.

She’d never experienced anything like it before, and it gave her the most unexpected flare of pride and pleasure.

When the bartender came over, Kelly ordered the same thing her friends did, a pretty red drink that was sweet and fruity—nothing at all like the sips of beer she’d had before.

She drank several swallows and decided there couldn’t be much alcohol in it. She could hardly taste it.

They finished their drinks as Veronica opened the silly little gifts they’d gotten her, and then Heidi decided they should go next door to the “male revue” show. They had another drink there, and by that time Kelly was feeling more relaxed, so she didn’t even mind the rather tacky performance of men ripping off their pants and humping audience members.

She laughed and cheered with the others as one of the dancers came over to Veronica, who was wearing a bride-to-be sash, and did his thing with her. At some point, one of the others must have ordered her another drink. It was still tasting good, and Kelly didn’t feel like she was going to be sick or pass out or anything, so she happily drank it.

As they were leaving the male revue, all three of them were laughing hysterically. Kelly had had plenty of good times before, but she had never felt like this in her life—completely free, as if all of her normal little worries didn’t mean a thing.

They were to meet up with the guys in the lobby of the hotel, before they all headed for the wedding chapel. When Kelly saw Peter standing with the others, looking relaxed and incredibly cute with slightly mussed hair, a gray suit, and loosened tie, she felt the strangest surge of ownership.

Peter was her friend. And he was the cutest guy around—not to mention the smartest and sweetest and funniest and overall best. He smiled when he saw her approaching, his eyes running up and down over her body.

He liked how she looked. He’d never liked how she looked before.

She was flushed and strangely giddy as she made a beeline toward him, wanting to touch him, feel him, be close to him in a way she never had before.

She didn’t know why exactly she wasn’t stopping herself, since it wasn’t something she did, but she wrapped her arms around his neck when she reached him, pressing her body against his. “Hello,” she said.

Peter smelled like something strong, biting—whatever he’d been drinking. She didn’t know enough about alcohol to recognize it. “Hello,” he said, a smile in his voice. “Are you having a good time?”

She was having a good time. She was having the best time she’d ever had in her life. “Oh yeah. We watched mostly naked men dance.”

Peter frowned. His arms were resting around her waist. “And you enjoyed it?”

In a weird little flicker of her mind, she realized that she normally wouldn’t act like this. And for some strange reason, she didn’t want Peter to recognize the difference. “It was okay,” she said, releasing his neck. “They all looked kind of fake, but it was funny to watch all the girls screaming.”

This was evidently close enough to her normal behavior to satisfy Peter. He gave her his adorable little eyebrow arch. “I bet it was. So you didn’t do any screaming?”

She had. If truth be told, she had. “I’m not the screaming type.”

His eyes were focused on her face, with an expression somewhere between appreciation and questioning.

She liked the appreciation better, so she smiled at him.

His eyes warmed in a way she could recognize very clearly. She liked that.

She really liked that.

“How much did you have to drink?” he asked.

“Not much,” she lied. “I didn’t even finish the one I had. I didn’t want to be sick for the wedding.”

Kelly had no idea why she’d lied. She’d never lied to Peter before. She almost never lied to anyone. It just didn’t normally occur to her as something to be done.

But the warm, happy fog in her mind was telling her that she would have a much better time if Peter didn’t know how much she’d drunk. He always tried to take care of her. He would try to stop her from doing all the things she wanted to do tonight.