Chapter 10
Morgan
Rory’s eyes are the size of dinner plates as she stares down at my grandmother’s ring. The whole bar is deathly quiet, waiting on her answer.
Any moment now, she’s going to react. Worst-case scenario, she rolls her eyes and looks unimpressed. Best-case scenario, she laughs her ass off, tells me I’m an idiot, and I say something smooth and clever, like “Well, if you don’t want to marry me, then how about a first date?”
I may have thought about this too much.
Finally, Rory looks up. Her mouth hangs open, and yeah, I know that feeling. The ring is shocking as hell. She probably thinks it’s fake though. Who would believe a small-town bartender like me has a giant diamond ring just lying around to use as a prank?
She stares at me for a beat. And then she says the last goddamn thing I expect to hear.
“Yes.”
Noise erupts all around us and I stare back at her. She said yes?
She said yes!
I throw back my head and laugh.
“No, wait!” she says, eyes widening even farther, but it’s too late. No one but me can hear her over the noise of cheering and congratulating. She reaches out and grabs my collar, pulling me toward her. “What the fuck, Morgan?” She has to shout over the noise.
“You said yes!” I shout back. “No take backs!”
“That’s not how this works!”
She starts dragging me down the bar by my flannel, her long strides and narrowed eyes making everyone move out of her way. They were up on their feet anyway.
When she gets to the pass-through, she steps behind the bar and pushes me toward the storage room. Over her shoulder, I see Hunter slip past the crowd at the bar and give me a chin lift, letting me know he’ll take care of things out here.
My shoulders hit the door. Rory flings it open and we both go stumbling in. It bounces off the wall and closes behind her, muffling the noise of the bar and cutting off all the light.
“Fuck,” she says in the dark. “Where’s the light switch?”
“It’s over—” I reach for the wall toward the door and bump into Rory reaching in the opposite direction. Our arms tangle, and I hit something soft.
“Ouch!”
“Sorry.”
“That was my boob!” Her voice is full of indignation.
I try again, dodge a flailing arm, and we take steps toward each other.
Instinctively, I reach out to steady us both, and the ring, which I somehow managed to hold on to all the way around the bar, flies out of my hand and clinks on something.
I’ve got my hand on Rory, though, and any other thoughts fly out my head, including the light switch. My hand settles on her waist, just above the band of her jeans and somehow tucked under her leather jacket to that sliver of skin that shows when she puts her helmet on or takes it off.
I may have watched her from the window a few times.
Rory slaps around until she finds the switch and we’re lit up in the fluorescent glow of the storage room.
“What. The. Hell.” She punctuates each word with a light back-handed smack on my chest and shoulders.
I grab one of her wrists and hold it above our heads. She smacks me with the other one, but it’s got less oomph to it. “Me? What about you? You said yes!”
“And I clearly didn’t mean it!” She’s given up on smacking me but I keep ahold of her wrist.
“How was I supposed to know that? Or anyone else in the bar either?”
“Why on earth did you do that?”
“Because I thought it would be funny.”
Now I get the eye roll I was expecting. I let go of her hand.
“Help me find the ring. I dropped it in here somewhere.”
We fall to our hands and knees (after Rory huffs in exasperation) and start looking. The storeroom is full of standing shelves with dry bar supplies. The ring can’t have gone far, but it’s dark beneath the shelves and also a bit grimy so Rory pulls out her phone and turns on the flashlight.
After a few minutes looking for the ring, I start to get nervous. What if we never find it? Jesus, no wonder Uncle Robert told me not to count on the money until I actually had it. I’m sweating thinking about the windfall I might have lost in the deep dark corners of this place.
Rory sits back on her heels. “What does it look like?”
My face is pressed against the floor, my fingers running along the far wall.
If either of us were in our right mind, I’d probably tease her about staring at my ass, which is pointed right at her while I’m hunched over.
“You just spent like five minutes gaping at it, you don’t know what it looks like? ”
“I was stunned speechless by the sheer audacity of your confidence.”
“How about if you find any ring, you run it by me and I’ll tell you if it’s the right one.”
“Smart-ass,” she mutters. Two seconds later: “Found it.”
I yank my hand back from underneath the shelves and tell myself I’ll talk Hunter into hiring Kit to come in and do a deep clean back here. “Thank god. Where is it?” I’ve got a bar rag in my back pocket, so I take it out and wipe the cobwebs off my hands.
I shift around so I’m facing her and she points. There’s a mug on one of the shelves that we use to store Sharpies and pens to label boxes and fill out inventory, and the ring is caught on one of the pens, the diamond sitting on the lip of the mug like a cheeky little fucker.
“Jesus Christ. If that had fallen into the mug we never would have found it.”
“That’s concerning,” Rory remarks.
She stands and leaves it to me to pluck the ring out.
“Okay,” I say, staring at the ring. “We know why I asked you. But I still don’t know why you said yes.”
“I’m not going to marry you.”
I shrug. The lady doth protest too much. “Maybe.”
“What do you mean maybe?” She’s getting worked up again.
“Maybe it was a Freudian slip?” I raise both hands in a what-are-you-gonna-do gesture. “And you still haven’t answered the question.”
Rory looks away, crossing her arms and biting her lip.
I wait.
“My grandma’s sick, okay?” she tells the floor.
My face falls. “Oh, shit. Is she gonna be all right?”
“Maybe. Probably. She’s normally in pretty good health for her age and I think this is just an infection.” She kicks one of the shelves gently with the toe of her boot. “It’s just the two of us, and she’s always ragging on me to find someone. She doesn’t want me—she doesn’t want to die alone.”
Rory finally looks up at me. “I’m sorry, all right? It was just a weak moment. It would make Grandma happy and I wasn’t thinking clearly.”
I look down at the ring in my hand. I’m not alone in life—I have my friends, and every day I get to see familiar faces.
Herevians that love me and care about me.
I don’t know what Rory does for a job, or where she lives, or who her friends are. But if she’s that desperate . . .
This time, I do it properly. I get down on one knee. Rory glares at me. “Rory Fox, will you marry me?”
“Shut up.”
“I’m serious,” I protest. “Well, kind of. Look, if this is something that would make you happy, let’s do it. Let’s pretend a little. Let’s tell your grandma we’re engaged, and let her enjoy it for a while.”
“She’s not dying. I hope. I mean . . . she’s sick right now, but the doctors are optimistic and she’s too ornery to go down without a fight.”
“So we pretend for a while and then call it off. Say it didn’t work out.”
Rory rolls her eyes. She turns and walks away, as far as she can in this little room, and then turns back. “We barely know each other. No one’s going to believe we’re engaged.”
Okay, my knee is starting to ache. I rise and gesture toward the outside world. “Everyone out there knows you’ve got me hook, line, and sinker. And they just watched you accept my proposal. Hell yeah, they’re going to believe it. They’ll think I finally wore you down.”
She lets out a weak laugh. “So what, I’ll wear the ring? You’ll come meet my grandma? Then what?”
I stretch my arms out. “Ball’s in your court, my queen.”
Silence falls between us. I lift the ring.
Her arms drop to her sides. “Fine, okay.”
“That’s exactly the words I’ve always wanted to hear when I proposed to the woman of my dreams,” I tease. “Give me your hand.”
Rory holds out her left hand and turns her head away, but I see her watching out of the corner of her eye.
I slide my fingers on her hand, the tips trailing over her palm. Her nails are short and rounded, trim and pretty. I line the ring up to her finger and take a deep breath.
A moment of doubt creeps in. What am I doing? Rory just said that we barely know each other and I’m about to trust her with an expensive family heirloom. She could sell it or lose it or . . .
Fuck. I can’t sell the ring as long as we’re pretending to be engaged. Shit, shit, shit.
I look up at Rory and she’s facing me now, watching me, her eyes dark and serious.
I slide the ring on.
It fits perfectly, and we both let out a breath.
I pull my hands away and wipe the perspiration off on my jeans. Who knew a fake engagement could make me break out into a sweat like this?
Rory stares at the ring. “I guess we have to go back out there?”
“Yeah. Oh, but hang on.”
I start to unbutton my shirt.
“What are you doing?” she hisses.
“Hang on.” I get about halfway down and then rebutton, purposefully missing a hole. I run my hands through my hair, grabbing fistfuls of it and tugging. Then I peer at Rory.
“Your hair is already pretty wild. How about I just take some of this—”
I lean forward and tilt her chin up. Carefully, I swipe my thumb over her lips, smearing the edge.
It’s only about halfway through that I realize how much I’ve invaded her personal space.
Our toes are almost touching, and I’m standing close enough that I can make out the dark brown ring around her blown-out pupils.
She presses her lips firmly together and glances away.
Right.
I take my thumb and swipe it over my own lips, attempting to smear some lipstick around. She may not be ready for me to kiss her, but at least we’ll look freshly fucked.
Rory’s watching me again.
I reach down and grab her left hand in my right, twining our fingers together. “You ready for this?” I ask, one hand on the doorknob.
“You’re a menace.”
“You love it.” I fling the door open, and we step out into the bar as a newly engaged couple to the sound of catcalls and cheers.