Page 36 of Framing the Pitch (Red Dirt Romance #1)

Trace and I walk into the largest conference room at the resort to find everyone on their best behavior, which is a stunning sight compared to how things were looking when we left everyone a few hours ago to get ready.

Trace, a step behind me, slips a hand around the waist of my purple cocktail dress, the warmth of it a comforting presence through the thin silk.

“You say the word, and we’re out of here,” he leans over to whisper to me as Jenna sees us from the far side of the dining table and makes a beeline for us.

“Don’t tempt me,” I whisper back, and we laugh together as Jenna approaches with a strained smile.

“I’m so glad you two are here now.” There’s no bite to her voice, just thinly veiled exhaustion, and the way her eyes flick to Mom, I can understand why.

While she may look like she’s on her best behavior, her sharp words, accented by sharp movements with sharp body parts, are a giveaway that Mother-of-the-Bride-zilla is present .

“What’s she going on about now?” I quietly ask my sister as she leads us over to the table where our names are on placards atop the fine white china.

“That this”—Jenna’s perfectly manicured fingertips brush the tablecloth and an edge of one of the plates—“isn’t the same as what we ordered for tomorrow’s dinner after the ceremony.”

Trace pulls out my chair and I sit, watching the rest of the bridal party and a few other special guests get herded to the table by Jenna and Ryker.

Trace joins me on my right and immediately reaches for my hand, which I gladly offer him.

Mom sniffs as she seats herself, and tonight, I’m grateful that Dad separates the two of us.

Trace’s hand moves to my upper back, his warm palm and subtle callouses sending goosebumps rippling down my arms.

Once everyone is seated, Ryker stands and welcomes everyone.

Polite nods circle around the room as he quickly introduces everyone, and a modicum of tension eases in my body when barely an eye is batted when Trace is introduced—one of the few benefits of attending the wedding of two professional snowboarders with friends and family so entrenched in the sport or adjacent ones that a well-known professional athlete causes only the tiniest of ripples.

During the dinner, Mom barely speaks to me, which is a blessing.

The groomsman sitting to Trace’s right engages us in enough conversation that I can politely avoid my mom.

As the meal continues, courses coming and going with minimal snarky remarks and pointed looks, I’m almost ready to call this event a success.

Jenna and Ryker are pulled aside by the officiant and taken to the side of the room to talk about what tomorrow’s ceremony will entail for them before we start the short rehearsal.

Plates are cleared by waitstaff, and bridal party members kick back with another drink in their hand as they wait for their part in this event.

When his plate is taken away, Trace thanks the staff and relaxes back into his chair, throwing his left arm around me and pulling me into him. I tip my head slightly to rest on his shoulder and look up at him.

“You still good?” he asks, looking out over the assortment of people who are all occupied by their own private conversations. His hand slides from my shoulder to the back of my neck where he fidgets with the button of my halter-neck dress.

“Always, when I’m with you.” The soft smile I manage for him has to be enough to conceal the way my heart is beating out of my chest. Trace looks at me with a sweet smile before pulling me closer and pressing a lingering kiss to my forehead.

He inhales, holding his breath for two beats…

three…four…before pulling back and exhaling.

Trace’s phone buzzes in the interior pocket of his suit jacket, vibrating my arm with its urgency. He pulls it out, and the sweet smile he had for me moments ago falls away into a frown.

“It’s Duke. I’ve got to take this.” Trace leans back, unwinding his arm from around my shoulders, and stands, answering the call in a low voice before heading toward the glass doors that lead out to the covered balcony that stretches the length of this conference room.

Without Trace by my side, it feels like I’m missing half of myself. And I have no one to be the buffer when my mom leans forward and pulls me into her conversation with Dad and Talia Ames, Ryker’s mother.

“So, when are you retiring?” Mom asks, resting an elbow on the table and placing her chin on the back of her hand.

“Pardon me?” I turn toward her, my eyebrows, undecided about raising in shock or furrowing in confusion, staying put in an even expression.

“Naomi,” Mom says in a condescending tone that makes me frown and sets the hairs on the back of my neck at attention, “you’re well on your way to being a football player’s trophy wife with the way you two are canoodling over there.

Don’t you think it’s time to hang up the cleats? Put that part of your life behind you?”

“Excuse me?” Whatever evenness I had in my body vacates the premises, my heart rate spiking. My hand clamps around the empty air of where Trace’s hand has been all night. All night, except now. When I need him most.

“Realistically, how many more years do you have in you?” Mom continues, ignoring the warning look on my face.

“The chance of injury goes up every year you keep playing, so why not retire? You can get married to that boyfriend of yours and start putting out the next generation of athletic children. If you’re lucky”—Mom has the uncanny ability to look down her nose at you while looking you directly in the eye—“maybe one of them will take up a sport that will get them an Olympic gold.”

My chair revolts at the way I shove it back from the table, the unholy screech drawing everyone’s eyes.

“I’m not retiring.”

Mom’s eyes widen as I snatch my clutch off the table, not stopping to say excuse me or pardon me or any other asinine pleasantry to my mother as I walk away in the direction that Trace went only moments before.

I feel the eyes of everyone following me as I stride to the glass door, but I ignore them.

Trace’s back is to the wall of glass as I pull open the door to the balcony. Sitting on one of the metal chairs overlooking the snowless ski runs, he glances over at the noise and smiles as I step out into the cool summer night.

He extends his hand as I approach, and I slip mine into it, Trace tugging me closer as he continues his phone call.

Duke’s voice is a quiet mumble I can’t quite make out as I step into Trace’s space.

My knees bump the side of his thigh, where I can already see a growing wet spot on his light gray slacks.

I guess he didn’t check for any rainwater that may have blown in from the storm, and now it’ll be my privilege to tell him his butt is wet.

Without missing a beat in his conversation, he leans back slightly and tugs on my hand, pulling me downward until I’m sitting in his lap.

Now, I’ve sat on his knee before when there haven’t been enough chairs in a room, but that was perching on the end in a very platonic manner, not this my-back-is-fully-pressed-against-his-chest sort of thing.

I try to wiggle forward a little to give myself space to breathe and think, but Trace wraps an arm around my waist, anchoring me to him, his big hand splaying wide across my stomach.

The night air is warmer than inside the air-conditioned lodge, but this morning’s storm leaves it feeling significantly cooler than the nights I’m used to in Texas.

Add in the soft breeze blowing in off the mountain looming ahead of us, and the difference in temperature between where my back is pressed against Trace and my bare arms makes goosebumps pebble across my exposed skin.

Never mind that internally, I’m reaching the temperature of the surface of the sun thanks to Trace’s hand across my midriff.

We’ve passed the boundary of friendly touches plenty of times in the last month and a half—even kissed when we were in Alabama—but Trace’s hand, his thumb absently stroking as he chats away with Duke, feels like we’re stepping past that boundary and jumping off the cliff beyond.

My brain is short-circuiting at his touch, and in the absence of fully functioning inhibitions, the greedy little gremlin, who has been hoarding every single one of his touches since the day we began this charade, wins against her logical counterpart.

I relax back into Trace, pressing my body to his, enjoying every degree of body heat that diffuses into me.

Trace turns his head, his nose brushing my hair then the shell of my ear, his soft breath sending waves of heat down my spine and to my toes.

I barely register Trace’s murmured “Yes, mmhmm” as I slip into my own little fantasy world.

One where Trace places a kiss right below my ear then drags his lips down to my bare shoulder.

This fantasy is one I keep tucked so far down, it rarely sees the light of day, especially after I gave up my crush on him in college.

But tonight, I’m feeling indulgent. Trace and I have come so far from those days of young adulthood—our friendship has grown like a beautiful garden and is now blooming into something else…

especially since going back to Tuscaloosa for the Fourth.

Like ever since that kiss, our lines have been redrawn closer to something like a real relationship, but still fall short at the end of the day.

But here, in the approaching dark, where it’s just me and Trace and the stars winking into existence above us, I indulge myself in the thoughts that have been growing with every passing day, every passing touch…

Fingers trail down my arm, eliciting another wave of goosebumps, and another warm kiss presses against my spine at the base of my neck. Another kiss, barely there, on my other shoulder…

And I realize I can’t feel the rumble of Trace’s voice through my body…because he’s no longer on the phone.

And those are very real kisses from a very real Trace across my very bare skin.

I stand.

Trace’s hand doesn’t break contact with me as I turn to face him, nearly collapsing at the heat in his eyes that threatens to melt my knees in an instant. This is all an act , I remind myself. There are people watching .

“We should head back inside,” I hear myself saying, but my brain still can’t comprehend everything that’s happened in the last few minutes.

Trace’s Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows, his jaw working like it’s difficult for him to say what comes next, but the heat never leaves his eyes as he looks up at me.

“Yes, ma’am.”

Coming back into the conference room, the air conditioner feels like heaven on my overheating skin.

Jenna calls my name and waves me over to the side of the room, where the wedding party is organizing into the rehearsal procession.

Trace kisses my temple, something simple that continues to stoke the fire he was building out on the balcony, before gently pushing me toward my sister.

I throw a glance over my shoulder, and he shoos me again and flops onto a chair at the edge of the room, a growing smile on his face.

I join Jenna and meet Carson—the groomsman I’m paired with—again. Looking around at the rest of the wedding party, it’s obvious that Christa paired me with the tallest groomsman, but even if I were barefoot, he would still be a couple inches shorter than me.

“Are you good if I wear heels?” I ask as we line up at the wedding planner’s request. Carson offers me his arm, and I take it.

“Of course, whatever works for you.”

I’m not insecure about my height, but I know it can be a sensitive subject for a lot of guys.

But thankfully, this groomsman isn’t a dating prospect in any way, thanks to Trace standing across the room.

I have the urge to look over at him, but I keep my focus on the wedding planner—the sooner we get through the rehearsal portion, the sooner I can escape back to my room with Trace .

One by one, Christa announces who’s next in the processional, and we walk down the makeshift aisle. Tomorrow’s ceremony will—hopefully, if Jenna is right about the rain—be up on the mountain, overlooking the picturesque landscape, and not thrown together in a hotel conference room.

Once we’re all arranged at the front of the room and Christa and Jenna are happy with how we’re positioned, we reverse the trip down the aisle, and as I make it past the invisible demarcation line of where the rehearsal ends, I blow out a sigh of relief.

Thankfully, Mom is quiet, her arm tucked into Dad’s and off to the opposite side from where the bridesmaids and groomsmen have gathered.

For the first time this weekend, she’s standing with a smile on her face, her head resting on Dad’s shoulder as she gazes lovingly at my younger sister.

Once upon a time, I would have done anything to get her to look at me like that.

But over the years, I learned that unless I were to magically shrink a few inches and become a snow sport whiz kid overnight, it was never going to happen.

Jenna and Ryker have a quick, hushed conversation with the wedding planner and officiant, leaving the rest of us standing in an awkward group. I drop my hand from my escort’s elbow and look around for Trace, who’s still sitting over by the wall.

“Alright, ladies!” Jenna’s bubbly personality is back as she sidles up to our group.

“Let’s go.” She grabs Melissa by the elbow and me by the hand and pulls us toward the door.

Melissa looks like she’s a much more willing participant, and the other bridesmaids follow along, their demeanor instantly perking up.

“Go? Go where?” I ask, desperately trying to look back and find Trace, but his sitting form is hidden by the ring of groomsmen, led by Ryker, that has formed around him .

Jenna shoulders open one of the conference room doors, and even the air is fresher out here in the hallway. It doesn’t seem nearly as oppressive as it was trapped in that room.

Melissa laughs. “The bachelorette party, of course! You know the tradition—Jenna’s with me tonight.”

I look at Jenna, a question in my eyes. “I thought you guys did the bachelorette months ago?”

Jenna nods, her lips falling into a flat line for all of a second.

“We did.” And it was a weekend I wasn’t exactly invited to.

“But I thought it would be a good idea to have a little get together, since I won’t be going back to my room tonight.

Nothing fancy,” she promises as her footsteps continue down the hall in a determined march.