Page 162 of Proposal Play
“I really like being here,” she says, snuggling closer. “It’s funny though. I don’t think we’ve gone on many dates. We mostly stay in.”
“Yeah, we do.” And I’m more than okay with that.
“It just feels like home,” she murmurs, before hopping out of bed. “And I got something for you.”
I prop myself up on one elbow. “You did?”
“Well, I made it. Earlier today.” She rustles through her purse and pulls out a small mirror decorated withruby-red rhinestones. In the center is a sketch of a couple kissing, with the wordsJust love me.
“Don’t drop it,” she warns with mock seriousness as she hands it over. “It’s got ruby rhinestones. Basically, it’s priceless.”
And it is priceless to me. I run my fingers over it, tracing the words. Finally, I’m free to just love her, which is all she wants. “I will. I promise.” I set the mirror down on the nightstand, then pull her back into bed and kiss her softly before turning serious. “Maeve, I’m not going to change overnight. Are you okay with that?”
“Very okay,” she says.
“You sure?”
“I’m positive. Besides, I liked you before I fell in love with you. And I like you even more now. Don’t worry—I’m like a barnacle. You can’t get rid of me.”
I laugh, holding her tighter. I’d never thought it could be this easy—but then I suppose that’s the joy of falling in love with your best friend. “Good, because I won’t.”
I’m not going to say I sleep through the night. I’m not cured. I haven’t even seen the therapist yet. But I sleep better than I have in a long time. I only wake once, and I resist the urge to go downstairs and flip open my laptop. Maybe it’s because I don’t have anything to look up right now. Or maybe this is the start of a new, healthier habit. Either way, it feels good.
When I wake up for good around seven—late for me—my phone is already buzzing. It’s a message from Everly saying,Call me.
Every muscle tightens. Instinctively, I check social media, and it doesn’t take long to find the problem.
The woman who bid on me at the auction and lost has posted about us.“Pay it forward, indeed—their marriage is fake.”
58
CONNECTING THE DOTS
Maeve
Maybe I sense a disturbance in the Force. That’s the only explanation for why I’m awake at this god-awful hour of…oh. It’s seven. I guess I should be getting out of bed. I have a mural to finish. But when I turn toward Asher, my chest seizes up.
He’s clutching his phone. Shit. Is he going there again? Already?
But before I start spiraling, I remind myself that it’s not the phone that’s the issue—it’s how he uses it.
“What’s going on?” I ask, trying to stay calm. Focus on communication.
He sighs, dragging a hand over his stubble, momentarily distracting me because, damn, he looks good with it. “Miranda Blush is saying our romance is fake. She just posted a whole video laying out her ‘evidence.’ She told her half a million followers that our marriage is all a PR stunt.”
I sit up straight, ready to march into battle. I fought her off once. I’ll do it again. Quickly, I run through every event in my head—brunch with the Greers, dinner with the board, the picnic. She wasn’t there for any of it. “What the hell? How does she know how it started? It’s not like either of us slipped up in public.”
His lips twitch slightly at my words—how it started. Like he’s still delighting in the fact that I’m acknowledging how it started one way but shifted into something else entirely. I hope he stays in that delight for a long, long time.
But then he schools his expression. “Honestly, I think she’s just taking a good guess. Her video is like, ‘Does this seem off to you?’ Then she lists how the first public photo of us kissing was at the auction, and how we happened to get married in Vegas right as the photo from Jen and Hal went viral. Then she points out how we posted more photos after that—photos that seemedstaged. She’s connecting dots that maybe were fake at the time.”
I want to rip out her extensions. “What is she, a forensic social media-ologist?”
“I guess,” he mutters, his jaw tight. “But that’s all she’s doing—guessing.”
“Well, she’s wrong. So fuck her,” I say, crossing my arms. “She can’t hurt us because we’re together for real.”
But Asher doesn’t relax this time. He turns toward me, his expression still grim.