I was pretty damn sure she was right, but she didn’t know me well enough to make that assumption. “How so?” I asked with my own amused grin. She turned her body slightly toward me. The bench I’d taken as my own was under a large live oak tree and it was placed here for the wedding seeing as I’d never seen this bench at Bliss’s parents before. It was just big enough for two people and when Ophelia turned to me, her shoulder brushed mine before her thigh made brief contact. Her scent wafted toward me with the breeze as if she’d coordinated with the weather. It wasn’t the familiar floral scent most perfumes had, but it reminded me of coconut and sunshine. The best smells of summer radiating from her skin.
Whatever it was, I had the urge to bury my head in her neck and inhale deeply. But I wasn’t that drunk.
“We’ve been in the same place a few times. I’ve watched you. I like to observe people,” she explained with a small lift of her bare perfectly tanned left shoulder. “You’re the good guy. The one everyone knows will do and say the right thing.”
That snapped me out of whatever drunken attraction I’d been feeling toward her. I’d just thought the same damn thing, but I didn’t need a female coming and rubbing it in my face. Why was I the good guy? Why did I do everything so damn straight and narrow? A memory of the last time I’d gotten drunk and done something stupid came to me.
“I had a one-night stand, drunk and didn’t remember it,” I told her as if this was enough to make me a badass. It made me a dick. But what the hell ever.
She did that sexy laugh again and as much as I didn’t want to soak in the sound of it and admire the sheer beauty of her face . . . that’s what I did. Her lips were so damn full, could they even be real?
“I don’t think the sexcapade you and Lila Kate had her first night in Sea Breeze makes you bad. We all know Lila Kate is the closest thing to a perfect angel there is and she wasn’t drunk, just tipsy from the Jell-O shot you gave her.” She sounded amused as she mentioned the shots I’d honestly forgotten about.
I paused a moment. “She told you about that?” I asked a little shocked.
“We are roommates. Although she’s rarely home, but I have known her my entire life. Our mothers are best friends.” She sighed. “Her wedding is the next one I’ll have to be a part of,” she said that a bit sourly.
“I heard she got engaged,” I replied. It hadn’t affected me. I’d been happy for her and kind of assumed that was a given from the start.
Ophelia nodded. “Yeah, I knew it was happening. They just made it official. I’ll have that big flat all to myself since Cruz bought them a house on the country club land. But another event where I have to get all dressed up and do this.” She waved her hand in front of her as if this was the worst thing in the world she could be forced to endure.
“It could be worse. You could be the Bride’s Best Man,” I said jokingly. Because my role in this wedding was anything but traditional.
Ophelia laughed again and I liked how it felt to make her laugh. Those eyes of hers sure were something. “The fact you and Dad are the only two in the wedding party is the best thing about this. I don’t have to stand up there while everyone stares at me. I’m not so lucky in Lila Kate’s wedding.” She rolled her eyes. “Maid of Honor in that one.”
The fact Ophelia didn’t want to be stared at intrigued me. She got stared at daily. She would get stared at in sweats and her hair in a ponytail. She was that kind of good looking.
“You should be used to getting stared at,” I told her.
She frowned, her nose slightly scrunched and damn if it didn’t make this sultry beauty look adorable. “Why?”
The sincerity in that question wasn’t lost on me. Even slightly intoxicated I saw in her expressive eyes she was serious. There was no way in hell this woman didn’t know she was gorgeous. Women who looked like this knew. She wasn’t simply beautiful like Lila. Ophelia’s physical appearance was on another realm of stunning. Lila was as beautiful inside as she was outside and that had made her so damn appealing.
Ophelia was the kind men got one look at and fantasized about over and over again. She didn’t even have to speak. Just one look and you were memorizing that image for later.