Chapter 12 No Fall Zone #2
“I’m not calm. I’m freaking the fuck out, Mabel.
We’re married. Like real-life, big-time husband and wife married.
But those are the cards we’ve been dealt.
There’s nothing we can do about it now unless we want to sabotage ourselves.
So, yeah, I’m going to do as Trina says.
I’m going to live here and agree to all your rules and play the role of the besotted husband, because what’s the alternative? ”
“We could tell Trina to go fuck herself.” Ryder rolls his eyes, but I’m serious. “I mean, I love her, but I don’t see why she wouldn’t just let us get the annulment like we wanted.”
“You know as well as I do that it’s in the best interest for both of us if we keep our heads down and get through the Milan Games before we make any more big moves. Careers have been destroyed over smaller things than quickie, accidental, drunk marriages.”
I sigh, sinking onto the couch next to Ryder and pinching the bridge of my nose. His knee bumps against mine, and like this morning when he held my hair back as I puked, I feel like we’re on the same team.
“I know. You’re right. I just feel so stupid. I’ve spent my entire life trying to be a good girl, a role model, someone who always does the right thing. And now—”
“You’re still all of those things, Mabel. I promise. Even when this is all over, I’ll make sure the world still sees you exactly how you are.”
“And what is that?” I ask, cocking a brow in his direction. Ryder just shrugs.
“Perfect.”
My stomach swoops, and suddenly I’m thirteen again, watching Ryder slide a wilted corsage onto the wrist of his freshman homecoming date.
It was the first time I’d seen Ryder in a suit, save for our parents’ tenth anniversary party a few years earlier, and I was smitten.
He looked so grown up, so handsome, and I felt like such a dumb kid when he turned and caught me staring.
He called me Marshmallow and told me to grab a camera and take some pictures, and I was overwhelmed with jealousy.
Jealous of the girl whose name I can’t remember but who got to be his date that night.
Jealous that I’d never know what it felt like to have Ryder hold my hand, wearing flowers he’d bought me around my wrist like a bracelet.
Jealous that his date was someone else, and I would always just be Little Mabel Marshmallow to him.
“I have one more rule.”
“Lay it on me.”
“No one else. At least not until after Milan and only after we’ve got a separation plan in motion.
And even then, if you have to fuck other people, keep it discreet, okay?
I know the Games are a veritable buffet of hot people looking to sleep around, but this is all embarrassing enough as it is.
We don’t need cheating rumors swirling around us, too. ”
The look Ryder shoots my way could cut glass and for a moment, I think he might actually be pissed at me for requesting that he not stick his dick in every athlete over the age of twenty in Milan.
Well, that’s just too damn bad. I open my mouth, ready to start the first of what I’m sure will be many fights in this sham of a marriage, but Ryder beats me to it.
“Mabel. There is no one else. I don’t care what pretenses this marriage falls under. You are my wife, and as long as you remain my wife, I will be faithful to you. I hope you’ll extend the same courtesy to me.”
Oh.
Oh.
That…does not sound like someone who is upset about not sleeping around.
“I will. Trust me Ryder, one fake husband is enough for me to handle. I don’t need any more complications in my life.”
“I have one rule, too. Well, it’s more of a request than a rule, but it’s a request I really don’t want you to turn down.” Ryder says quietly.
“Lay it on me,” I echo. The look of concern on his face morphs into something else. His signature, shit-eating grin he only gets when he’s really about to tease me.
“We need to spend time together. Real time, not just existing in the same space time. We need to, you know, date. Each other.”
I throw my head back and bark out a laugh, feeling lighter than I have all day. I laugh until tears brim my eyelids and my abs start to ache, and when I catch my breath, Ryder is still looking at me with that damn grin that makes his green eyes sparkle.
“Laugh all you want, Marshmallow. But I’m serious.”
“You’re so full of shit,” I say, wiping a stray tear from my eye.
“Hear me out. We’ve got a few weeks until Milan, where we’re going to have to sell this marriage to the whole world in real time. We’re going to have to get to know each other, get comfortable together.”
“Ryder, we’ve known each other since I was born. I think we’re good.”
“If I leave it up to you, we’ll be ignoring each other unless there’s a camera pointed at us, and then when there is, it’s going to be blatantly obvious that we’re lying about being married on purpose.”
“I think you’re being a little bit dramatic, Rye Bread.”
He reaches out, his fingers skimming the skin by ear as he brushes away a strand of hair, and my stomach knits up. Instinctively, I slap his hand away.
“Thanks for making my point, Mabel. Trina is going to kill us if we don’t sell this thing, and we’re never going to sell it if you swat me away every time I reach for you.”
Fuck. He has a good point.
I hate that.
The acrobats performing their tricks in my chest hate it, too.
“Okay, fine. We’ll spend time together, get deep, share our favorite colors and deepest secrets, and we can practice holding hands and all that dumb shit. But only until Milan. Once the Games are over, we’re focusing on ending this thing and going back to normal, okay?”
“And normal is…”
“We’re reluctantly stuck together by fate and if you lay a hand on me, I get to bite you.”
His head rolls back in mock ecstasy.
“I love it when you talk dirty to me, baby.”
I scoff and shove at his chest.
“Ryder Atticus Finch, I swear to god, if you pull some stupid shit at the Games and embarrass me, motherfucker…” I trail off, letting my unspoken, half-hearted threat hang between us.
Ryder tilts his head, green eyes trailing up my body, lingering on my breasts and then my lips.
My breathing stutters, my body betraying me.
My mind wants to tell him to fuck off, but the repressed part of me that has always been a little wanton for Ryder’s attention wants him to keep drinking me in.
When Ryder reaches out and brushes a thumb over my lower lip, I swallow back a whimper, and he huffs out a small laugh.
“You are so going to fall in love with me, Marshmallow.”
Ignoring the warning bells in my head screaming that he might be a decade too late on that assessment, I bark out a sarcastic laugh.
“Listen to me, Rye Bread. You might as well start thinking of me as a vertical drop off the side of a mountain. Stay in the air, buddy, because this? This,” I motion to the space between us. “Is a no fall zone.”