Total pages in book: 154
Estimated words: 148473 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 742(@200wpm)___ 594(@250wpm)___ 495(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 148473 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 742(@200wpm)___ 594(@250wpm)___ 495(@300wpm)
I breathe in, breathe out.
But my thoughts race away annoyingly. Soon, I start turning over brand-new scenarios. Imagining what-ifs I’ve barely let myself entertain before.
Like…
What if I stopped holding up all the walls and let myself explore whatever this is with Maeve? What if I let myself feel all these things for her? What if I romanced my wife?
Here’s the biggest problem with those what-ifs—what if it all goes wrong?
I shudder at the thought.
Fucking shudder. A visceral sensation that runs jaggedly through me. I wince, then turn to look at her, sound asleep, happy.
Maybe this will be enough.
34
YOU’RE GETTING TO BE A HABIT WITH ME
Maeve
I’m kneeling on the grass, wearing cut-off shorts and a black T-shirt that says, “Make Art, Not Hard-Boiled Eggs,” while sniffing a lavender bush. It’s a candid shot of me at the lavender farm in Darling Springs, taken a few years ago on our Big Adventure there. In the corner of a photo, a black-and-white hound of some sort is looking at me. I’m petting his head as I sniff the flowers.
“When did you take this?” I ask, my brow furrowed. I don’t remember him taking the picture. I remember the farm dog though. His name is Hudson, and the owner of the farm—Ripley Addison—and I talked about his rescue for a while. She even recommended the organization if I was looking for a pet. I wish I could have a dog. My apartment’s a bit small though.
I shake off the dog dreams and turn to Asher, adding, “This photo.” So he knows what I’m talking about.
“When we were there,” he says easily.
“No, I mean…I don’t remember you taking it,” I say, glancing at him, confused.
He shrugs, turning away to make coffee. “Must have sneaked it in,” but now he sounds a little evasive.
I hold up the frame again, inspecting the one he must have set on the kitchen counter last night. Usually, I’m the one taking selfies or dragging him into them.
“So, like, a drive-by shot?” I joke, but I feel unsettled.
He fiddles with some lever on the fancy coffee machine. Maybe it’s an espresso machine, now that I think of it, with all these knobs and levers.
“Yeah, exactly.”
“And you had it framed? Like the one on the nightstand?” I ask. I noticed that picture of me in my Quick-Draw Maeve shirt when I woke up. But why am I so focused on this photo here? Oh, maybe because it’s easier than talking about what happened last night. In his home. Now our temporary pretend marital home. When we indulged in all the things.
I can still hear him saying spit on it.
I can still feel how aroused I was from that filthy command.
He turns around, brow furrowed. “For the news crew. I wanted it to be believable.”
Right. Of course. I don’t know why I thought it might be for another reason. How stupid of me. I did the same thing with our wedding shots.
“It’s great,” I say cheerily, despite the knot forming in my chest. I don’t want him to think I don’t like it. “It’s really thoughtful.”
“So were yours.” The words feel so…false. Like two people tiptoeing around each other. Like we had a fight, and now we’re being overly polite to avoid breaking something fragile.
When I woke a little while ago, the bed was empty. He’d probably been up for hours. I threw on a sweatshirt and wandered downstairs to find him making egg-white omelets and saving some for me. Now, he’s brewing coffee. I don’t even like coffee that much. I thought he knew that. But I’m not about to complain. I’m a guest, after all.
That’s it. That’s why I feel so weird. It’s always awkward to be a guest in someone’s home, even when that someone is your best friend—or more? It feels like when I visit Aunt Vivian or when Josie invited me to her mom’s house one time after college. Everyone was lovely, but I felt so out of place. Maybe because I don’t even have a family home to go to.
And now I’m standing here, feeling like I don’t know how to behave with Asher after last night. Our tryst in Vegas was one thing—it was practically chaste by comparison. Last night was entirely different. We were drenched in orgasms. We were naked. We were shameless. We crossed all sorts of lines and yet held back at the same time with that technical no-touching rule—intimacy veiled by a boundary. But I need boundaries or I’ll fall into old patterns—clinging, needing, holding on too tight. The way Gideon said I was with him. And I can’t do that with Asher. I have to let go of people…like I was forced to do with my parents.
My chest squeezes uncomfortably at the reminder, then aches with memories of them. Back when they were happy. When she was well, when he was the man madly in love with his wife. When no one was sick, or dying, or heartbroken. But if I cling too hard to those memories, I’ll get lost in them, and we have a show to put on today.