Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
RENLEY
Theo’s expectant eyes stare back at me, hope shining brightly in them.
I know this is not a clever idea, and I’m trying to keep my distance and focus on what’s important, but the way he’s looking at me, really, what can one little sit-down hurt?
“Fine,” I say. “Let’s have some strawberries.”
I swear, Theo’s jaw just hit the floor.
“Really?”
“Yes, really. And don’t make a big deal about it or I’ll change my mind and leave right now.”
“Nope, not making a big deal about it, not at all.”
“Good.”
He’s silent as I take a seat and pop open the strawberries. When I look up, he’s staring at me like he wants to say something but won’t.
“What?” I ask.
“Nothing.” He shakes his head.
“Nope, you can’t say that. Clearly there is something you want to say but you’re not, so just say it.”
“I have nothing to say because I’m not making a big deal about this. I’m just going to sit here and eat strawberries with you and drink wine, and if my mind starts drifting off to what our wedding will be like, then so be it.”
“Oh my God—”
“I’m kidding.” He laughs. “Seriously, just kidding. I’ll be thinking about what protein Rupert will be serving me when I get home because he can’t think that I can just have chocolate-covered strawberries for dinner and that will do it.”
“Yeah, me neither.” I pick one up and then take a bite out of it, loving how the strawberry juice explodes across my tastebuds.
Okay, this is good.
Really good.
“Wow.” I look at the strawberry. “These are delicious.”
“Yeah?” He reaches for the box but I pull it away, blocking him from taking one. “Uh, pardon me, but those are for the both of us.”
“Says who? There weren’t rules or instructions on this bag, it was just set here, in my place of work, which makes these mine.”
“Did you really pull that out?”
“Yup.”
“Well, since my butler brought them, do you think we could at least share?”
“Here.” I hand him the whipped cream. “That can be yours.”
He holds out the can, looking down at it. “I can’t have one strawberry?”
Those pleading eyes connect with mine again, so I take pity on him. “Fine, you can have one, but I get a squirt of your cream in my mouth.”
His nostrils flare. “For the love of fuck, please tell me you said it like that on purpose.”
I chuckle. “I did. I wanted a little shock value added to the night.”
“Consider me fucking shooketh,” he says, making me chuckle. “Seems like my personality is wearing on you in a good way. Next step, up the visitations to ten.”
“You can’t even get to five.”
“Is that a challenge?”
“No,” I answer in a panic. “No, keep it where it is. I don’t need more of you, especially after witnessing you vacuuming your face off.”
“I did not vacuum my face off.”
I take another bite of a strawberry while he tips the whipped cream can back and shoots some in his mouth.
“You’ll be lucky if you don’t have a whole-face hickey tomorrow.”
“Please, that won’t happen. That sucker was barely on my face. Maybe a second.”
“It was on there longer than a second. I think I counted up to ten Mississippis.”
“What the hell is that?”
“Ten Mississippis? That’s like counting in seconds.”
He shakes his head. “I’ll never understand you Americans.” He takes a bite of the strawberry and then moans loudly. “Jesus, what the hell kind of juicy strawberry is this?” He examines the fruit between his pinched fingers. “This is delicious. Hand me one more.”
“No way.” I bring the box closer to me.
“Excuse me, I’m famished after sucking my face with a vacuum. I need more nutrients.”
“Then go get some.”
“No, because I’m cashing in on my visitation. I’m not about to surrender my right to see you. Just hand me another strawberry. Please…”
His eyes actually look bigger as he pleads with me, and for some reason, it does the trick.
“Fine, but last one.” I toss him a strawberry, which makes him gasp.
“Watch it, you can’t just throw these around like your Mississippi balls.”
My brow furrows. “Why did you put ‘Mississippi’ in front of ‘balls’?”
“Because you put it in a phrase.”
“That’s not how it works.”
“How am I supposed to know?” He shrugs and then holds up his can of whipped cream. “Can I cream you now?”
I sigh heavily but nod. “Go ahead. Cream me.”
“Do you want any wine?” Theo asks as he tips the bottle back and takes a swig.
“Normally I’d say no, but that chocolate has made me thirsty.”
“Want me to feed it to you?”
“I’m more than capable of taking a drink on my own.” I take the bottle from him and hold it away from my lips, starting to tilt it.
“What are you doing?”
“Taking a drink.”
“By not putting your mouth on the bottle?”
“But your mouth was on the bottle.”
“So?” He shrugs. “We’re bound to share saliva at some point. Might as well ease in with sharing a bottle of wine.”
“What makes you think we’re going to share saliva at some point?”
“Please,” he scoffs. “It’s written all over our story.”
“We don’t have a story.”
“Oh we do.” He nods. “It’s forming right now. Some might think it’s slightly unbelievable, but with just enough alcohol in the system, you can confuse a financier with a fiancé. Trust me…you know.”
The amount of teasing this man does on the daily. I’m unsure how he can just keep coming up with new things over and over again.
“I’d prefer not to talk about it, as has been stated in the rules.”
“Right, forgot about that one. Anyway, just slap your spit on that bottle and I’ll lick it right off.”
“There is something seriously wrong with you,” I say as I place my lips on the bottle and take a sip. When I’m done, I’m met with his huge smile. “Don’t say anything.”
“Not a word.” He grabs the bottle from me and presses his lips to it, taking a swig for himself. When he’s done, he kisses the air in my direction, with an added wink.
I just shake my head, because there is no controlling him, and even though it’s against the rules, I find it oddly entertaining. Maybe there’s something wrong with me.
“So, you’ve lived here your whole life,” he says as a statement, not a question. “Can I ask why you live with your aunt? Are your parents still around?”
I shake my head. “Never met my mom. When my dad passed, I moved in with Aunt Kitty, and well, it’s just been us ever since. She doesn’t have any other family members besides me, so we’re all each other has.”
Apparently, there is an aunt and uncle and cousins out there somewhere, but Aunt Kitty thinks they moved to Germany many years ago and she lost contact.
We’ve always been a close-knit family, but sometimes I wonder what it would be like to have other aunts or uncles, or even cousins in my life.
Would it have been better having a larger family? I’ll never really know.
“You two seem close.”
“We are, but we also bicker a lot. She’s a bit eccentric at times, like my dad, which means the town doesn’t take us seriously.”
“Why the hell not?”
I take the bottle from him and sip again.
“Because as much as I love this town, it has a snobbish air about it. It’s an expensive tourist town, like the Massachusetts version of the Hamptons, and well, they don’t really understand why Aunt Kitty rides around the front yard with a hobby horse, or why my dad had a million different jobs while living here.
We were designed to live in one of those quirky small towns where everyone is in each other’s business, but they also help out at the same time.
Gossip flies around here like wildfire, but attached to it is judgment and shaming. ”
“Shit, really? I didn’t know.” He looks toward the windows. “Who is judging and shaming? I’ll go have a talk with them, tell them what’s what.”
“Uh-huh, and what exactly would you say?”
Jabbing his finger to the ground, he says, “I’d tell them you don’t judge and shame my fiancée who is not my fiancée but maybe could be my fiancée, or you’ll have to answer to me.”
“Ooh…scary.” I pretend to shiver.
“I know. No one is going to mess with that.”
I laugh and take the bottle from him. “What about you, do you have any siblings?”
“I have a sister who is traveling the world. Her name is Elizabeth and she’s dating a woman named Hannah.
My dad absolutely hates it, but I honestly believe it’s one of the greatest things ever.
Elizabeth was picked on her whole life, never really fit in, then she went to university and met Hannah, and it’s like my real sister finally appeared. She’s happy and living her best life.”
“That’s wonderful. Do you stay in contact with her?”
“She texts about once a week with pictures of where she and Hannah have been. We chat a little, but I’m just watching from a distance as she gains confidence through her travels with Hannah by her side. Can’t wait for them to get married.”
“Are they engaged?”
He shakes his head while I sip from the bottle. “Not yet, but Hannah said she’s proposing soon, even sent me a picture of the ring. I’m just waiting on the phone call when it happens.”
I nod. “What about your parents? What are they like?”
“My mother completely dissociated after Elizabeth and I moved out of the house. She now just focuses on her friends and activities, keeping up the facade of a healthy marriage when in reality my parents don’t sleep in the same room, and my dad is off with some new conquest every week.
” He grabs the bottle from me and tips it back, taking an even larger gulp, allowing me to study him for a moment.
That has to be the most serious thing he’s said to me. I don’t know what it’s like to have two parents and I can’t tell you what a healthy marriage is supposed to be like, but what I can say is that what Theo experienced watching his parents has caused him grief.
“Did I just scare you away?” he asks, looking insecure as he pushes the bottle of wine toward me.
“No, not at all.”
“Are you just saying that to be nice?”
I take a sip from the bottle. “Nope. I don’t say things to be nice. You should know that by now.”
“True.”
To make him feel a little better, I say, “No family is perfect. I’m living that reality right now.
Like I was saying, I love my aunt, I really do, but she lives in a space where reality doesn’t matter to her.
She lives off her late husband’s life insurance, doesn’t work a job, and focuses on things that are more pipe dreams than real life.
I’ve dealt with it for a very long time, I’ve had conversations with her, begging her to make choices that don’t necessarily put her in situations where she’s going to be massacred by the town, but she refuses.
She’s just not responsible and it…it drives me nuts.
She tells me things are taken care of and then all of a sudden we don’t have any electricity because she forgot to pay the bill.
Or she tells me she has twenty thousand dollars for the candy shop when in reality she doesn’t.
I know it’s not the same thing as your dad, but I know the pain of dealing with your family’s poor decisions. ”
Lips pressed together, he nods. “I can see how she frustrates you sometimes.”
“She does. I’m more serious and she’s more, I don’t know, unserious.”
“That would be the opposite,” he says with a nod. “But you still get along with her and she still has your best interest at heart. Like this night for instance—the lights, the music—you can’t tell me that you haven’t thought to yourself, ‘Gee, I really wish I said yes to that proposal.’”
“Is that not bringing it up again?” I raise a brow.
“Just pointing it out. I keep seeing you grab your ring finger, looking for a ring there. Just say the word; I have it back at the house.”
“You actually have a ring?”
“Did you not look at the ring when I was proposing to you?”
“No, I was too distracted by the insane man kneeling in front of me asking for my hand in marriage.”
“Well, you have to take a look at this thing. It’s huge.” He reaches into his pocket, pulls his phone out, and then shows me the screen.
There’s an oval diamond, probably the size of my pinky nail, attached to a thin silver band. There’s nothing super extraordinary about it other than its huge jewel.
“Is that real?”
“Are you actually asking that question?”
“I am,” I say, studying the ring. Unsure what I’d do with something that big on my hand given all the work I do around town.
“I’m insulted. Of course it’s real; I wouldn’t propose to you with a fake ring.”
“I don’t know, maybe you thought this was a whole fake-proposal thing.”
“Renley, there is nothing fake about what we have going on. Everything about it is real. Even the way we swap spit.”
“You’re so…charming.”