Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 78470 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 392(@200wpm)___ 314(@250wpm)___ 262(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78470 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 392(@200wpm)___ 314(@250wpm)___ 262(@300wpm)
When Nate stands, I’m seeing stars—distant planets too. I’m not so far gone that I’ve forgotten sex manners. I curl my hand into a fist, move it back and forth in the air, demonstrating. “Want me to finish you?”
He shakes his head. “I gotta go. Team meeting.” Then my temporary husband threads a hand through my hair and drags my mouth to his, claiming me with a rough kiss. “Mmm. You taste so fucking good.”
When he breaks the kiss, he says, “Let’s go to the coffee shop in Bloomsbury tonight. The one with the affogatos. I really want to go out with you and your buddies. Trevor and Liam, right?”
“Yes.”
“Invite them if you want. Can you be there at eight? That doable?” He sounds so eager.
I’m glowing, both from the sex and the sweetness of his request. “I’ll work faster than any producer has ever worked,” I say.
I’m not missing one of my last nights with him.
Trevor and Liam are in rare form later at Coffee O’Clock, the shop in Bloomsbury near my home.
With a glint in his dark brown eyes, Trevor roasts me with the recounting of a trivia night last year. “And then Hunter jumped on the buzzer and shouted, We’re gonna need a bigger boat, but the emcee said Oh, sorry, that’s…wrong.”
Next to me in the spacious booth, Nate tilts his head my way, squeezes my shoulder sympathetically. “You’re, babe. You’re gonna need a bigger boat,” he says as a honey-voiced singer croons at the mic in the corner of the café.
“I know that now,” I point out. “And I haven’t lost movie quote trivia night since that ignominious fail.”
Trevor snort laughs. “Ignominious. Hunter never uses five letters when twenty-five will do,” he says as he lifts his glass.
Nate runs a hand through my hair affectionately. “He’s right, Mister Stupendous.”
“Stupendous is not a fancy word,” I insist.
Nate coughs. “Is so.”
“It is,” Liam seconds, then smacks a kiss to Trevor’s dark skin, a contrast to Liam’s pale, freckled face.
With an I told you so grin, Nate picks up the affogato and takes a sip. Then he says to the table, “Damn. This is almost better than the one near my house in San Francisco. Almost.”
“Where do you live in San Francisco?” Trevor asks Nate as the singer croons about stolen time.
“The Marina,” I say, answering quickly for Nate.
Nate turns to me. “Good memory,” he says softly with a soft smile to match.
“Well, it was a good day,” I say.
Liam bumps his shoulder to Trevor, then whispers something in his boyfriend’s ear. I can’t hear him, but I can guess it’s about me.
“Shut it,” I warn playfully.
Liam brings a hand to his chest. “Why would you think I was talking about you?”
“Yeah, Hunter,” Nate prods. “Why would you?”
Liam looks at Nate but points at me. “Because he talked about you a lot when he returned from that stupendous trip to San Francisco.”
For a second, I want to tell Liam to stop, but then I let go of that feeling, realizing I’m not embarrassed. I’m kind of glad they told Nate. I know I loved when Nate’s friends talked me up in front of him in Vegas. I hope Nate likes this insider detail.
And I suspect he does since he nudges me with his elbow. “So you told them how you picked me up at the dunk tank like the determined stud you are?”
I square my shoulders. “I did. I told them I met this jock in San Francisco.”
“And he had it bad for the jock,” Trevor says.
I swear I can feel Nate’s happy pride as he says, “That so?”
“Yes,” I say, glad I can give Nate this moment now.
“So, what’s the deal?” Trevor cuts in. “You guys met again last week and fell in love straightaway and got hitched?”
Oh, shit.
Nate and I didn’t discuss what to say to my mates. This is seriously exhausting, maintaining a fake romance, and I don’t want to lie to my friends. It’s hard enough to lie at work.
I’m about to say, It’s kind of a funny story, then invite them into the inner circle when Nate answers with a decisive, “Yes, that’s what happened.”
I sit straighter, feeling admonished and resenting it. That’s how we’re doing it? His mates know the truth? Mine get scraps of lies?
“That’s so sweet,” Trevor coos.
“I love it,” Liam seconds.
Nate drapes an arm tighter around me, pulls me close.
But I don’t feel close anymore.
32
THAT THING
Hunter
“Your friends are great,” Nate declares after we say goodbye a little later, then turn down a side street.
“Yeah, they are,” I mutter.
“It’s cute seeing you with them,” he continues as we head up the block, passing homes that look like Virginia Woolf or T.S. Eliot lived here once upon a time.
“That’s me. So cute.” I don’t bother to keep the sarcasm from my voice.
Nate pulls a face. “Whoa. What’s gotten into you?”