Page 180 of Boyfriend of the Hour

We both started at the sound of a shrill, high-pitched voice that bordered on a shriek.

“Fuck,” Nathan muttered into my hair.

I could only gawk. This couldn’t be happening.

“Nathan,” I whispered. “Did your mother just catch us having sex?”

But before he answered, her voice filled the planetarium again with the worst words possible.

“Get your hands off my son!”

THIRTY-SIX

REGRETS

#1 That fukking video

“Nathan.”

Lillian Hunt’s imperious Southern voice echoed again around the planetarium’s cavernous space. We both scrambled to right our clothes, Nathan tucking me behind him as he zipped up his pants.

We glanced at each other, but quickly broke into identical smiles.

“It’s no use,” I murmured as I reached up to fix my hair, which had mostly fallen out of its careful arrangement. At least I’d managed to cover my breasts again. “We’re a friggin’ mess.”

Nathan looked as bad as me, his curls a riot atop his head, and my lipstick visible around his mouth, even in the dark.

He grinned back at me. And had never looked more handsome as he quickly tugged me back to him to steal one last kiss.

Apparently, first impressions were out the door. I couldn’t have cared less.

“Get yourfilthyhands off my son!” Lillian shouted again as she made her way down to the bottom of the room, followed by, I realized, both of Nathan’s brothers, as well as his father.

“Excuse me?” I snapped back before I could hold my tongue. I didn’t put up with my fourth-grade teacher calling me stupid, and I wasn’t going to take this lady’s shit either, even if she was my boyfriend’s mother.

“Mom, calm down,” Nathan said, despite the fact that absolutely no womaneverobeyed those two words. “Joni’s my girlfriend. What we were doing isn’t exactly out of the ordinary, even if the location is.”

Behind Lillian, Spencer snorted. “The Museum of Natural History.” He looked up at the stars still circling the ceiling. “Pro move, bro. Didn’t think you had it in you.”

“None of us did.” Carrick appeared beside him, his massive arms crossed over his chest, having removed his jacket at some point during the evening. “Did you really think you wouldn’t be missed, you jackass? Dad’s giving the keynote in ten minutes. Everyone sat down for dinner but you two.”

“We just needed a minute,” Nathan said as he hurried to right his clothes.

“Only a minute?” Spencer said. “Nate, I think we need to have a talk about endurance.”

He held his hand up for a high-five to Carrick, who ignored him. But when he caught my eye, Nathan’s youngest brother winked at me. Under normal circumstances, I might have laughed back. I had a feeling that if things were different, Spencer Hunt and I might have gotten along.

Right now, however, I was stuck on another point. The little speech Nathan’s father was about to give. What Xavier had told me it would include. And the fact that his mother wassoangry he was missing it.

Nathan had stood up for me too many times to count.

Now it was my turn.

“Maybe it’s for the best that we miss the speech,” I said.

The entire family whirled.

Lillian’s expression flared. “And why, exactly, wouldyousay something like that, you little trollop?