The Redo (Winslow Brothers #4) (51)

When she doesn’t say anything, I add, “It’s too bad my favorite singing partner is mad at me. Marvin Gaye is feeling a little lost over here without his Tammi.”

“I’m not mad at you, Remy,” she says quietly but still loud enough for me to hear over the music. “I’m just mad in general.”

I don’t respond. Instead, I hold up an air microphone in front of my face and start to sing the opening lyrics.

Maria rolls her eyes, but it only takes another ten seconds before she’s watching me. And the more I sing, the more I notice her shoulders start to relax away from her ears.

“Was I being mean to you earlier?” she eventually asks me over the music, and I shrug.

“A little, maybe?”

“I’m sorry,” she apologizes with a small frown, and I hold out an air microphone toward her.

“Don’t worry, Tammi. I know just the way you can make it up to me.”

The hint of a smile starts to show on her lips.

“C’mon, Ria. You know you want to.”

Her smile is visible now, and she pretends to take the air microphone from my hands.

And then, we sing our hearts out. Eventually, both of us fall into it so much, we have to share the same air microphone.

Maria giggles when I really go nuts and start trying to mimic Marvin Gaye’s voice, and by the time it comes to an end, she can’t swipe that pretty smile from her lips.

Hell yeah. I knew I could cheer her up. Just call me the World’s Best Boyfriend.

“You just couldn’t let me be mad, could you?” she asks, turning her whole body to face me.

“Nope.” I smile. “Am I in trouble now?”

She searches my eyes for the longest moment, and when her gaze flits down to my mouth briefly, she looks back up at me with a mischievous-as-hell grin. “Only the good kind.”

“The good kind of trouble? What does that mean?”

“It means I’m going to kiss you, Remington Winslow.”

Maria has never actually said those words to me. She’s hinted at them but never voiced them in a way that made me feel like she was ready to take the bull by the horns.

“Yeah?” I gulp. “And when are you planning on doing that?”

“Right now.”

Right now? Holy shit.

She reaches out to place her hand on my cheek, and I don’t miss the way her fingers shake a little, vibrating against my skin. I half expect her to hesitate, to let her nerves get the best of her.

But she surprises the hell out of me.

Leaning forward, she places her lips to mine, and the first, ever so gentle brush of her mouth occurs. Light as a feather, the kiss lingers like that long enough that I can feel my heart getting off-balance in its spin cycle in my chest.

The urge to take it further overwhelms me. I slide my fingers into the hair at her neck and kiss her, really kiss her, right there in front of the medical center. Our mouths part and our tongues dance, and I don’t know if I’ve tasted anything as sweet as this.

It’s not my first kiss, but damn, it feels like it. Every other kiss before this one feels like an impostor. A fake.

They weren’t hesitant but hungry like this one. More experienced, but not nearly as mind-blowing. If I’m not careful, I just might end up falling in love with this girl.

Actually, you just might already be.





Still Saturday, October 5th

Maria

Who would’ve thought that a simple walk around Central Park would make me feel better?

Certainly not me. Somehow, though, the tightness in my chest has eased, and I no longer feel like my shoulders are trying to relocate to my ears.

If anything, I feel relief. Rejuvenated. Human.

“You have to admit, Izzy and I put on one hell of a show,” Remy says with a big-ass smile as we stand off to the side of the huge rock he just climbed down from. “We should probably take this on the road. Hit all the major cities.”

The man just presented her to all of Central Park from the top of that big rock like she was freaking Simba, while the soundtrack from The Lion King played from his phone.

The two of them were such an amusing spectacle that even random strangers stopped to clap and laugh.

“The next time you rock climb with my baby, I’m calling the cops,” I retort, and the teasing tone in my voice can’t be missed.

“Hold the phone, babe. I thought you said I would only be in the good kind of trouble when I came back down?”

“This is the good kind,” I tell him with a playful point of my index finger. “The bad kind would be me kicking your ass.”

He laughs at that. “Well, I’m more than happy to take the heat because my little stunt achieved what I needed it to.”

I raise an eyebrow at him, and he nods toward my face.

“You’re smiling.”

You’re smiling. He did all that to make me smile?

After everything he’s already done for me, I don’t know what to do with that information. I almost feel undeserving of his kindness. I mean, I’m losing count of how many times he’s saved my ass… And what have I given him in return? Stress? A crying baby?

Izzy begins to fuss in her carrier, but when Remy bounces his knees a little, she calms down and her eyes start to fall shut.