25. Showtime #2
Another perfect detail painted into the story. It prompts me to carry the tale forward.
“It was real,” I say. “It was also…” I trail off, unsure how far to go, how much truth to infuse into the tale.
“A promise?” Eleanor offers eagerly.
“I suppose it was.” I settle back into my chair, feeling pretty damn good about the play we’re presenting. “Now, I can see it was a promise I needed to keep. Once she bid on me at the players’ auction, and we went away, well, it all clicked.”
“And you went viral. I just loved all the photos—you and the couple you gave the room to, the concert, the roulette game. Even the auction kiss.”
“Ah, it’s so lovely.” She turns to her husband. “Maybe we should pay it forward too. With a kiss.”
She doesn’t need to tell him twice. Spencer leans in and presses a quick, affectionate kiss to Eleanor’s lips. Except…nope, it’s not quick. It lingers. It lasts longer than I’d expected.
When he finally pulls back, he shrugs, but his smile is cocksure. “My wife is irresistible.”
“It’s good that you feel that way.” I think back to earlier at the coffee shop when Maeve and I re-established our rules—nothing physical.
Maeve seemed to need that line in the sand, so I’ll respect it.
I keep my hands to myself for the rest of brunch as, at last, the conversation shifts to the mural and away from us.
“By estimates I’ve been given, it should take several weeks—anywhere from eight to ten,” Eleanor says.
Maeve’s eyes widen. “Oh. Really?”
Shit. Does that bother her? Eleanor picks up on Maeve’s surprise and asks, “That won’t be a problem, will it?”
Maeve quickly recovers. “Of course not.”
When brunch ends, we offer to clean up, but they decline. Eleanor says she needs to gather her notes for the mural and then arranges to meet Maeve at the arena later.
“I’ll bring Holmes,” she tells Maeve. “He likes to keep me company. Does that work for you?”
Maeve snorts. “I believe the question is—does that sound like the best way to work?”
Eleanor smiles. “Like I said, kismet.”
“It is,” she agrees and waves at the dog when we pass him on the way to the door. In the foyer, Eleanor tilts her head, assessing us like puzzle pieces, roaming her eyes over Maeve and me.
“I remember the honeymoon phase,” she muses. “We couldn’t keep our hands off each other. But maybe young people today are different.”
Wait. What the hell?
I feel like I’ve just been checked into the boards. My head is rattling. She thinks I’m not into my wife because I didn’t touch her ten million times like they did?
“That’s not the case,” I say quickly, defensively. I reach for Maeve’s hand, but she’s holding her bag, and I miss it.
Great. Just great. Now I look like an awkward teen flailing around on his first date.
Spencer offers me a sympathetic smile and a clap on the shoulder. “There, there. You’ll figure it out.”
I stare at them, dumbfounded. A perfect routine, which I fucked up by not touching her like the Greers touch each other. We didn’t stick the landing, and that’s what the judges will remember.
We leave, and once inside my car, I grip the wheel hard, dropping my head on it. “So much for that show.”
When I look up a few seconds later, Maeve gives an apologetic wince. “I guess we need to be as handsy as they are next time. Who knew? I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be,” I murmur, frustrated I missed that detail. I don’t like to fuck up. I don’t like to make mistakes. I don’t like asking my next question, but I have to know.
“When she said the mural could take eight to ten weeks—did that bother you? I know it’s longer than we’d planned to stay married.”
“No,” she says quickly, cutting off that notion. “It’s fine. I’m good. I was just worried about you. Are you okay staying married that long?”
So good with it. “Definitely. With the charity launch and everything, it makes sense.” I try to keep my response casual, though I’m pumping a fist virtually.
“I promise I’ll get better at acting.” She nibbles on the corner of her lips. “I’m just not that good at faking it, I guess.”
And I could take that a million ways, but I take it the right one. I know she liked holding my hand earlier outside the shop. I know she loved it in Vegas when I kissed her like I couldn’t get enough of her. And I would bet my entire hockey career on how very much she’d like to ride my cock again.
That’s not what she has a hard time faking.
What’s tough for Maeve is not being her true, authentic self. She means she wanted to touch me. So she wasn’t that good at not touching me.
I fight off the biggest, cockiest grin ever. My wife wants me. The Greers want authentic? I’ll give it to them.
“I have an idea,” I say.
“Count me in,” she replies without asking what it is.
We drive to the Marina, and along the way, she turns to me, her expression shifting. “Do you think it’s true? That I was her first choice all along?”
“Of course,” I say as we cruise toward the bay, glittering in the afternoon sun. “Why wouldn’t that be true?”
“She said they like to work with players’ partners. What if they waited until we were married to hire me?”
She sounds so vulnerable, and it tugs hard on my heart. “Maeve, they hired you, not me. It’s your name going on the mural, not mine.”
“Right, but what if they did it to make you happy?”
Oh hell. How can I ever reassure her? “Look, I’m not even in a contract year. They’re not sucking up to me. You got this job on your merits,” I say, trying, desperately trying.
She flashes a smile that quickly turns to a frown. “I don’t want to be handed things because I’m…Mrs. Callahan.”
“You’re not,” I say emphatically, wishing she could see what I see in her talent. “You got this on your own terms. She said you were her top choice. Hell, she opened up the field just because she was blown away by you and wanted to make sure she was being fair. And she came back to you.”
She shudders out a sigh, then nods like she’s trying to absorb that truth. “Thanks, Asher. I seriously appreciate that.”
“Get used to it, wife. There’s more where that came from,” I say. I’ll do whatever it takes for her to know I believe in her.
“And I think you deserve a badge for being a great temporary husband,” she says.
But to earn it, I need to do everything I can to make everyone believe in this marriage.
I park near the water and take her hand as we walk across Crissy Field. When we stop, I hold out my phone, the Golden Gate Bridge rising high behind us.
“Smile for social,” I say.
She does, bright and beautiful—a clear smile that burrows deep into my heart. But it’s not enough.
I don’t want a smile for the camera. I want to show the whole damn world that I can’t keep my hands off my wife. But I don’t want to presume she wants a kiss too, so I start to ask. “What about—?”
“A kiss for social?”
It’s the best finished thought ever.
“Yes.” I tug her against me, her back to my chest. I wrap an arm around her waist, and then, with my free hand, I cup her jaw and turn her toward me. I kiss her, long, slow, deep—the kind of kiss that’s a prelude to how I want to fuck her.
I mentally record her reaction—her sighs, her hungry murmurs, and most of all, the way she surrenders to the kiss. She tilts her chin, she parts her lips, and she invites me to kiss her thoroughly with everything I’ve got.
That’s who she is. Someone who gives fully, who loves deeply, who wants with her whole soul. I kiss her by the bridge and in front of the ocean so we can tell our story.
When we break the kiss, she sighs—a deep, satisfied sound. “You kiss me a lot.”
She’s not wrong. “Want me to stop?” I ask like it’d be no big deal. Only, it’d be a terrible deal.
“No,” she says, then smiles up at me. “Who knew my best friend was such a good kisser?”
I drop a kiss onto her nose. “I guess you know now.”
“I do know,” she says in a feathery whisper.
I drive Maeve to the arena so she doesn’t miss her appointment with Eleanor, telling her goodbye as she goes inside.
But I don’t take off yet. I do what the guys said I should do—make this official on social.
I post the bridge photo with a caption, keeping it cheeky.
Can’t spell kindness without kiss. And I can’t kiss without my brilliant wife, Maeve Hartley. What have you done to be kind today?
I tag the Sea Dogs and Maeve, hoping the Greers see it.
If anyone doubted I want my wife, they’d better not doubt it now. But for all Eleanor talked about loving our photos, she doesn’t even like this one.
Well, you can’t get lucky every time.