Page 95 of A Newport Christmess

“By the way”—he started the ignition, his gaze sliding over my body—“you look absolutely divine. I nearly forgot how insanely gorgeous you are.”

I looked out the window, gripping my coat in my lap and catching a last glance at Landon’s house before we drove away. “Where should we go to talk?”

He shrugged. “Do you have a place in mind?”

He wouldn’t talk if he felt like people could overhear us, and my emotional stability seemed a little shaky at the moment. The last thing I wanted to do was have a breakdown in front of a bunch of strangers. “Not really. Just somewhere private.”

The way he smiled at my comment made it seem like I’d implied something I didn’t. “We could always head back to my hotel room—if you wanted.”

“That’s fine.”

“Do you mind if we grab a bite to eat first?” He pressed the digitized screen above the middle console, scrolling until he found the maps. “My treat.”

My stomach rumbled at the thought of food, but I didn’t want to postpone our talk. I wanted to get to the rehearsal dinner. Not that I’d mention that to Cody. “I’m good, but thanks.”

“Well, I’m starving. And I hear Newport has amazing lobster rolls. It seems a shame to come all the way here and not taste one.”

Something fast would be okay. Landon and I had been in and out with our food in twenty minutes last week. “Go ahead.”

“Would you mind looking up a place and putting it into the map?”

I pulled out my phone and started searching when a low-battery warning flashed on my screen. I glanced around the middle console. “Do you have a charger in here?”

“No. I do at the hotel, though.”

Scrolling through the restaurants listed, I tried to remember which one Landon had taken me to, but I hadn’t really been paying attention. Go figure. I clicked on one with a massive collection of good ratings and leaned to enter the address into the car’s system.

Cody glanced over at me. “So who were all those guys?”

“Kade Carrigan’s friends, here for the wedding.”

“And why were they at the house with you? That’s where you’re staying, right?”

I didn’t feel like I owed Cody an explanation, but I also didn’t want him to shut down and refuse to talk to me. He likely thought there’d be a reconciliation, or he wouldn’t have flown across the country to chat, and a part of me didn’t want him to find out the truth yet. Had I always tiptoed around him, or was I just nervous? “The house belongs to Nikki’s brother. I’ve been staying there the last few weeks. The guys just arrived a few days ago.” Except Landon, but I didn’t say that.

“You’d think with all the money she and her fiancé have, she’d spring for a hotel room for you when the guys came into town. It seems like the decent thing to do.”

I bit my tongue, refusing to mention it had been my choice. “How’s your family?”

His gaze flicked to me. “Good. Courtney graduated this last June and started at UCLA. And my mom still talks about you all the time.”

“I miss her. I miss them all.” His family had been a huge part of my life for years, and to suddenly have them gone from it was devastating. I’d lost a lot more than just Cody when he left.

“They think I really screwed up, walking out on you like I did.” He paused, his thumbs tapping against the steering wheel. “I think they were right.”

I met his gaze. “They were.”

* * *

By the time Cody and I got to the hotel, the rehearsal dinner had been going for over an hour and a half. It wasn’t even Cody’s fault I was so late. I’d made the mistake of putting in an address to a lobster shack that was seasonal, and we didn’t realize until we’d parked and walked a good distance—which was made slower by my being in heels—to a boarded-up building next to the water. The next place was open, but the line was atrocious, and it took nearly forty minutes to order and get our food. By the time we got back to the hotel, waves of panic were rushing through me.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to order you something?” Cody asked, closing the doors behind us. “There’s a menu for room service on the dresser.”

“I’m good. Really.”

“So ...” He smiled, reaching out for my hand. “I’ve missed you, Quinn. I’ve missed this—us just being together.”

I pulled my hand free. “You can’t just show up and assume you can fix what happened between us. You left me. Without even an explanation.”