My fingers are flying across the keyboard, the article I’m working on nearly wrapped up, when a stack of papers slams down in front of me, startling me so badly that I feel some pee slip out. A new perk of pregnancy.
“What was that for?”
“I said your name three times. You were ignoring me.”
My teeth smash together, molars grinding. This man, I swear. “So you thought fit to scare the literal pee out of me?”
Beckham’s mouth twists with disgust. “You peed yourself?”
In a soft voice, I mutter, “Only a little,” cheeks heating.
He rubs his jaw. “Jaci said to give that to you.”
“Cool. Why are you still here?”
He pulls out the chair beside me—stupid, freaking communal workspace. “I booked us a trip.”
My fingers stutter over the keys. I save my document, then swing my chair around to face him. “What did you say?”
A trip? What is he talking about? And I just know that he’s only bringing whatever this is up now because he knows I can’t argue with him in front of our coworkers and give away the fact that we’re not a real couple.
Already Claire and Layla are exchanging giddy glances.
“It’s at an inn in Virginia.”
“Virginia?”
Baffled doesn’t even begin to cover how I feel.
“It looks very nice,” he goes on. “It’s on a farm, between the mountains, newly renovated. I rented out the whole thing, so you don’t have to worry about anyone hearing you scream.”
Layla squeaks at that. She sends me a wide-eyed look and pretends to fan herself.
To her I say, “Not the kind of screaming you’re thinking of. He means no one will hear me when he murders me.”
I’m not expecting Beckham’s laughter, and apparently no one else is, either, because when it booms out of him, the entire floor falls silent.
Beckham—or Sulli, as everyone else in the office calls him—is always so serious. He rarely smiles or laughs anywhere, and I have the impression that this is the first time some of them have ever heard him let loose like this.
“You keep me on my toes.” I shrug, trying to appear unaffected, even though inside I’m dancing a jig at having made him laugh so profusely.
Standing, he taps his fingers against the tabletop. “I’ll give you more details over dinner.”
Is this his way of inviting me to dinner?
“All right,” I say as he walks away.
Claire leans over, biting her lip to tamp down her smile. “You guys are so cute.”
“I . . . um . . . thank you?” Why do I have to frame it as a question?
“It’s good to see you guys so happy. He’s a great guy—don’t get me wrong, you know some hearts were broken around here when we found out he was taken now.” Layla nods in agreement at this, hand pressed achingly to her heart. “But we’ve never seen him like this before. You’re good for him.”
It’s on the tip of my tongue to say, I am? But I manage to bite back the words.
The idea that we’re good for each other should be preposterous, but the more time we spend together, the more I think we’re just right.
It was his way of inviting me to dinner.
Our waitress walks by with a mouthwatering pepperoni pizza for another table. I’m downright salivating, my stomach crying out with hunger. I need that greasy, cheesy goodness right now.
“You’re drooling.”
My head swings away from the pizza. “Huh?”
He taps the corner of his lip. “Drool.”
I think he’s kidding, but I touch my mouth where he pointed, and there is drool. How embarrassing. I wipe it away with a napkin, not meeting his gaze.
“I’m hungry.”
“I gathered that.” He looks at something on his phone. The Coke he ordered is already halfway gone. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him drink soda before. “Anyway, we’ll leave on the twentieth and return on the first.”
“Wait.” I pick up the wrapper to my straw, ripping it to shreds to busy my hands. “You were serious about that?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“I thought you were just saying that for the benefit of everyone else to think we’re spending the holidays together.”
“I don’t need to do that. They already see the way you look at me, so that does all the work for me on convincing them this is real.”
He says it so seriously that I’m not sure he’s lying—and if he’s not, it’s horrifying to realize I display my emotions so plainly.
My jaw drops. “I don’t look at you in any particular way.”
He arches a single brow, amusement dancing in his blue eyes. “Trust me, you do.”
“And what about how you look at me?” I counter, sticking my chin haughtily in the air.
“Tell me, how is it I look at you?”
“Like you want to eat me.”
He thinks it over, nodding in a way that seems to say, Fair enough. “I do love the taste of your pussy.”
A little shriek flies out of me. I cannot believe he just said that in public. Leaning across the table, I slap my hand against his mouth. “Don’t say things like that in front of strangers.”
He licks my hand, forcing me to yank it back. “Why not? It’s true. Besides, nobody is listening.” He brushes the ripped pieces of paper from my straw wrapper into a pile. “Back to Christmas, I assume you don’t want to spend the holidays with your parents, and mine are going to Italy. We can spend it together—we might as well get used to it.”
“You never asked me. What if I have plans with Laurel?”
“Do you?”
“Well, no—”
“That settles it.”
This man makes me want to rip my hair out. “You didn’t even ask me.”
“Because you would’ve said no.”
I don’t confirm. He’s right. The problem is, the more I’m around Beckham, the more I like him. Sure, he can be bossy and rude, but he can also be incredibly kind and go out of his way to help people. I even like the stupid games we play with each other from time to time. But he’s said enough that I know he doesn’t want to be a real couple. That’s fine—but my heart doesn’t want to get the memo, and it’s starting to get those treacherous things called feelings.
The horror.
“If you think for a minute I’m going to spend any holiday or birthday not seeing our kid, think again, so consider this a trial run.”
“I would never tell you that you can’t see our child.”
I hate that he even thinks that of me. I know coparenting isn’t easy, but even if one day in the future, we meet other people and get married, I want us to be able to get together and be civil for the sake of our child. This baby is innocent in all this and deserves two parents who can get along, not go at each other’s throats.
Even if I really like it when he chokes me a little.
“Why is your face getting so red? Are you having an allergic reaction?”
There’s no way I’m telling him where my thoughts have strayed, so I blurt out the first thing that comes to mind. “I really have to fart.”
He gapes at me, clearly startled by this development. I’m glad I’m capable of keeping him on his toes. “Do you need to go to the bathroom?”
“No. I’ll be fine.”
He looks skeptical.
“I swear if you smell something bad, it’s not me. Lady farts don’t smell.” They totally do, but I have to cover myself since I’m not actually gassy.
“Sure,” he says slowly. “All right.”
Blessedly, our pizzas are finally brought to our table. My stomach growls its approval. At least the restaurant is loud enough that no one can hear it.
“Ow! Hot! Hot! Hot!” Stringy cheese is burning the roof of my mouth as Beckham looks on in horror. Tongue flapping, I manage to disentangle myself from the cheese, setting the pizza down on the small plate the waitress brought earlier.
There’s no saving the burned roof of my mouth.
“Jesus, Len. Was the steam coming off the pizza not warning enough to let it cool down?”
“I was hungry!” I defend with a whimper. Hot cheese hurts like a bitch. “I told you we should get those breadsticks.”
“Are you okay? Do you need anything?” Our waitress rushes to our table.
I flap my hand to get rid of her, but Beckham says, “More water for her and an order of breadsticks.”
“It’s too late to bribe me with breadsticks.” My voice is hoarse, the roof of my mouth throbbing.
I don’t even want my pizza now. It did me dirty.
Beckham sighs, running his fingers through his hair. Somehow, despite it being the end of the day, it still manages to look impeccable, lying in soft, supple waves. He needs to drop the hair-care routine so my hair can look just as good. Sadly, I think I could learn a thing or two from him.
“You’ll still eat them,” he says, removing a slice of his own pizza from the serving platter and putting it on his plate to cool.
Smart man.
I was not so smart.
Lesson learned—bring more snacks to work, and don’t eat hot cheese.
“You’re right. I will.” I don’t even feel ashamed. Breadsticks are the superior bread—everyone knows that—and my pregnant self can’t get enough carbs. And sweet tea. I’ve been trying to limit myself, because I know it isn’t the best thing for me to crave, but damn, it can be hard.
“I think you’ll enjoy the inn.” I’m blaming pregnancy brain for the fact that somehow, I already managed to forget we were discussing that. “It’ll be a good chance to discuss expectations for when the baby comes.”
I frown, pondering his words. “What do you mean?”
“Nothing.” He waves a dismissive hand, refusing to meet my eyes. “We’ll talk about it then.”
“You’re forcing me to go on a trip to talk about things? This sounds sketchy. You are trying to kill me, aren’t you? I knew it.”
“Don’t be dramatic, Lennon.”
The waitress returns with that glass of water and a basket of breadsticks. I immediately take one of them, still not trusting my pizza.
Beckham watches me with a knowing look.
Smug asshole.
“Is Cheddar coming with us on this trip?”
“No, not this time. We’ll be taking the train.”
“I like your cat.”
He chuckles. “I know you do.”
“I still find it surprising you have a cat.”
He bites into his pizza. It doesn’t burn him since he waited for it to cool.
“I’m full of surprises.”
“This trip . . . ,” I hedge, carefully. I can’t believe I’m giving in to this, but a getaway sounds kind of nice, and we do have a lot of things we need to get sorted. “What should I pack?”
A sly grin curls his lips. He knows with that question he’s got me on board.
