Page 68 of Proposal Play
“Why do they look so good?” I say, then instantly regret it. I need to shut up. Like I wanted my friends to do.
He plucks at the forest green material, then looks back at me, holding my gaze. “Oh, this? You like it?” It’s asked as a challenge. In a rasp. Like the way I imagined he’d said,you have a lovely mouth.
“It’s nice,” I say, like I’m simply conceding when really, the way the shirt fits him is too hot for my own good.
“Nice? Did you mean it’s having a flamingo effect on you?” he asks, and great. Now I’m thinking about what he’s wearing under those clothes. Then he leans closer and says in a husky voice, “Or really, I should say peacocks today.”
It takes my brain a few seconds to catch up, but when it does, I clamp my legs shut, then suck in a breath. I should leave this alone. Really, I should. But I’ve never been good at resisting a cookie. “Fitting.”
“Is it?” he asks, with a curve of his lips. He loves toying with me.
And I think…I love being toyed with by him. That heady feeling spreads through my soul again, flooding me with warmth.
I flash back to the promise we made in Vegas—that nothing physical can happen again. There’s too much at stake, especially now with this marriage for appearance’s sake. “But none of that can happen,” I add quickly, shifting the conversation back to safer territory.
Asher’s voice lowers, teasing, “Self-care, Maeve? Is that what can’t happen?”
I swallow.Is he daring me to admit it?
“Nothing physical between us,” I blurt out, a little too loud.
Asher holds my gaze, unblinking. “I know. You told me that in Vegas.”
Right. I did. No need to keep repeating it. There’s a reason we’re here, and it’s not to get lost in the heat between us. “Our story,” I say, trying to string words together, but it’s hard because my mind is absolutely elsewhere—it’s in bedrooms, in showers, on the couch in our hotel room, on the street with that first kiss, at the party the other night when he claimed me before a crowd. “People are asking about our story,” I continue, forcing myself to concentrate. “My aunt did on Sunday night. Oh, she also wants to have dinner with us. But instead, I invited her to a hockey game. I figured we can grab something after?”
“Brilliant.”
“And my friends asked, too, though they know the truth about…this marriage.” It still sounds weird to say—this marriage. It’s still strange to be married to my best friend.
His brow furrows. “They do?”
“Well, yeah,” I say. “I couldn’t not tell them.” I feel awkward and unsure around him for maybe the first time. Is it because we were intimate? Because we’re flirting? Or because my friends basically looked inside my skull and bared my thoughts for Asher? “Is that a problem?”
He scratches his jaw, looking like his mind is spinning in a million different directions. “No, it’s fine. It’s just…the guys were giving me hell the other day, and I wasn’t sure what to say. What you’d want me to say. I didn’t want to tell the whole team, so I just went along with whatever they said.”
“Oh.” I hadn’t thought about that—what he would have to juggle. “You can tell the guys if you want. That’s what I did with my friends.” I pause though, mulling this over. “You’re not mad that I told them, are you?” I ask, worried.
He shakes his head, looking at me with a soft, thoughtful expression. “It’s kind of hard for me to be mad at you.”
I blink, a little taken aback. “Why?”
He shrugs, then gives a small smile. “The fact that you wanted to tell your friends? That’s not really something to get mad about.”
It feels like he’s saying something else, or maybenotsaying something. Maybe he’s holding back in some way. Sometimes it seems like he is. Sometimes he’s easy to read. Sometimes impossible to figure out.
But I want him to understand where I’m coming from. “I just told them how it all came together, how you wanted me to have a good night in Vegas, and how it sort of spiraled.” I roll my lips together, debating how much more to say. “I didn’t tell them what happened in the room if that’s what you’re asking.”
A smile shifts the corner of his lips. “I wasn’t. Asking.”
Oh. Maybe he doesn’t mind them knowing we were intimate? I feel a little silly now, but then again, this whole thing between us is so complicated when before it was the easiest thing in my life. I almost want to go back to the way we were, even though a part of me likes how we are now. “It just seemed personal. Quick-Draw Maeve and all,” I explain because I keep putting my foot in mymouth. Maybe it can go farther down my throat. Hard to say since it’s past my esophagus right now.
“And, as you said, Quick-Draw Maeve isn’t going to happen again. And hey, we’re not living together either. Or so I hear,” he adds with a smirk. He’s clearly amused with me, or maybe at me. Honestly, I probably deserve it. I feel a little all over the place today. It’s hard to get my bearings with him being so damn handsome.
“Well, it’s just that there’s no reason to do it. We don’t need to live together to pull this off,” I say. Do I sound like I’m making excuses? Am I making excuses?
“Exactly. We don’t. And I promise we can pull this off,” he says, a little bossy, and I like the command in his tone.
Time to focus then on why we’re here this morning. To get our story straight. “On Sunday night, my aunt asked me how we got together, and I mostly avoided it. But she’ll ask again when we see her,” I tell him, matter-of-factly. “And I feel like the owners are definitely going to ask, and I want to be better prepared. The board members probably will too. We should plan what to say. So we’re on the same page.”