I was already getting up. “Yeah. I’ll have to be back in the morning, but—” Thunder cracked overhead and I froze.

“Was that thunder?” he asked. But before I could answer, another rumbling shook the house and the rain started.

I opened the curtain to my window and looked out. “Ugh. It’s pouring.” The lake would be choppy and dark, docking would be a nightmare to do alone. “I can’t take the boat in this.” I was instantly disappointed. God, I hated this island.

“It’s okay,” he said. “It would have been nice, but…”

“But what?” I flopped back onto the bed.

“Well, the bed’s a little crowded anyway.” He panned over, and Chelsea was sleeping next to him on top of his comforter, curled up in her Frozen blanket. I laughed and he brought the camera back to him.

“Just know that I wish you were here,” he said.

I smiled. “I wish I were there too.”

CHAPTER 27 JUSTIN

I’d never done drugs before, but I imagined this was what being high felt like. I couldn’t wait for our date tonight.

We were doing the historic bridge walk and getting pizza. There was a Music in the Park event in the Nicollet Island Pavilion, which was on the route. It was the last concert of the season. I was bringing a blanket and some bug spray, a bottle of wine and some glasses. Leigh was watching the dog and the kids. I’d planned everything based on Emma’s answers to the survey I’d sent and then I made another invite. I used a picture of the Toilet King outside my window as the backdrop for it. Details matter.

Every date with her was sacred to me. I liked spending time with her so much, I brought her lunch yesterday just to have an excuse to see her for five minutes. I thought about the next time I got to see her every second up until she arrived.

I thought about her all the time.

She was getting an Uber to my apartment to meet me. When she finally knocked on the door, I practically ran to answer it. When I did, I busted up laughing. She was wearing the same shirt as me. The Toilet King, knotted at the waist.

“No way,” I said, looking her up and down in the doorway. “Where’d you find it?”

“Like it’s hard to find Toilet King anything around here?” she said.

“He’s got us as walking advertisements,” I said, stepping aside to let her in. “Unbelievable. We look like we’re on some twisted team-building exercise,” I said, closing the door behind her.

She grinned up at me. “Aren’t we?”

I couldn’t hide my smile. I didn’t know how it was possible she got more beautiful every time I saw her, but she did.

“Hi,” I said, my voice low.

“Hi, Kiss And Run Guy.”

“Not to be mistaken with Forehead Kiss Guy?”

She scrunched up her face. “Hmmmm. They do look a lot alike.”

I laughed and leaned in and kissed her. Just a quick peck, but it got my heart going anyway.

I could have sworn she was blushing when I was done.

“So this is it,” she said, tucking her hair behind her ear. “The infamous studio apartment with the view.”

I twisted to look over my shoulder. “I’d give you the tour, but you can see everything from here.”

She laughed a little and peered around. “Smaller than I expected.”

“The room at my mom’s house is much bigger,” I added.

“And it doesn’t have a giant toilet outside.”

“Silver lining.”

She nodded at the air mattress where my bed used to be. “What’s this?”

I rubbed the back of my neck. “The guys left this here. Thought maybe I’d want to use the place from time to time. I’m still paying for it.”

“Use it for what?” she asked, blinking at me innocently.

“Uh… naps?”

She nodded wryly. “Right. Naps.”

Now I was blushing.

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t hope we ended up back here after the date. The air mattress wasn’t ideal, and Brad put a damn Toilet King blanket on the bed just to be a dick. But still. Aside from getting a hotel room, which I shouldn’t be spending money on with all the new expenses, there was no other place for us to have privacy now. She had Maddy at the cottage. My new living arrangement wasn’t good with the kids there. An air mattress and the Toilet King was somehow the most reasonable option.

She was standing inside my personal space. Close enough that I could smell her hair. I wanted to pull her to me and put my nose to her head and breathe her in.

I stayed where I was.

“I need to see that billboard up close,” she said.

“It’s not close enough?”

She laughed and made her way around the foot of my air mattress, dragging a finger on the blanket as she went. She opened the sliding glass door and stepped out onto the tiny balcony into the warm summer air. I followed her and we stood there, hands on the railing, looking up at The King.

“You can see every pore…” she said in wonder. “You know, this would be a really nice view if the billboard wasn’t here.”

“Don’t rub it in.”

“Okay, but be honest,” she said, turning to me. “He’d be the first person you’d think of if you had a plumbing issue.”

“He’s been the first thing I think of the minute I wake up, all day long, when I go to bed…”

She laughed, shaking her head at the sign.

“I gotta give it to him,” I said. “His marketing is effective. He might be some kind of evil genius.”

She leaned on the railing. There wasn’t much room for two people out here. She was just within my personal space again, and she didn’t move to go back into the apartment. The proximity was a tiny intimate sign that even though we hadn’t done anything past first base yet, the intention for something past first might be there.