Chapter 6 #2
“I mostly watch college sports.” Which is true, in that Victoria would work at baseball games and I’d go mostly to hang out with her after. “Why?”
“Because you’re asking how I feel about being traded away from the worst team in the league to a good one.”
“When you put it like that…”
“How do you feel, being married to Brayden Forsyth?” he asks in the same tone I used.
I grit my teeth. I feel like I’m getting my degree paid for. I feel like I’m getting my health insurance covered. I feel like I’m a long way from home with no idea what’s going to happen. “Blissful.”
Asher quirks an eyebrow. “Clearly.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You have that newlywed glow,” he deadpans.
Mostly, what I have is a sheen of sweat coating my face and mascara that’s probably dripped down to my chin. I pull out my travel makeup bag from my tote and start to touch up my mascara—right as we go over a pothole. I manage to only get a small black smudge on my cheek.
“I wonder how many people have lost an eye that way,” Asher says.
“I haven’t.”
“You haven’t yet,” he corrects, as if it pains him that he could be proven right.
I hold up the tube of mascara. “I’m an expert at this.”
“Like at crosswords?”
So he was peeking at my phone screen when I thought he wasn’t looking. Did he catch me looking him up? “I’m not an expert at crosswords. Today’s took me longer than normal.”
“So three whole minutes?”
“Two minutes and fifty-eight seconds, thank you.”
Asher huffs. “My mistake.”
“Do you like crosswords?” He must if he was watching me do one.
“No.”
I wait for him to add anything to that. When he doesn’t, I go back to coating my lashes in mascara. “I’m not planning to lose an eye,” I say.
“Does Brayden not have object permanence?”
I pause mid-swipe. “What?”
“You’re obviously—” Asher gestures to my face as if whatever he’s saying is self-explanatory. “He doesn’t remember what you look like in makeup when you’re not wearing any?”
I don’t know if he remembers me at all. Because after our wedding, he deposited me back in the hotel suite then went and got spectacularly drunk at the bar.
When he stumbled back in, I was worried he was going to try to crawl into bed with me.
He didn’t. I assumed he’d passed out on the couch until I got up the next morning and found him asleep in the bathtub, still in his suit.
He hadn’t bothered with much of a goodbye that morning. Just grunted at me to “get room service or whatever,” then hopped an early flight to meet his team as they continued their road trip.
“I want to make a good first impression,” I said. “I’m meeting his parents.”
“Well, if you lose an eye, they probably won’t notice you have…” He motions to his own cheek as if removing mascara.
I take out a compact, attempt to scrub away the mascara with a Kleenex. Every dab only makes the situation worse.
“Here.” Asher plucks the tissue from my hand and reaches across the car until he’s close—his seatbelt all the way taut. “Lean in.”
My stomach drops. A sweet, Southern wife wouldn’t let a man who isn’t her husband touch her face. And I shouldn’t be letting someone else fix my problems. So I scoot away from him. Pick up the mascara wand again and dab it across my other cheek. “See, now I match.”
Asher barks a laugh. “That stuff makes you look like you’re going to war.”
I basically am. “I’m sure Brayden’s parents are very nice.”
“Yeah, you sound pretty sure,” Asher says sarcastically. “If it helps, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t want to go against you in battle.”
I don’t laugh. Nothing about this situation is that funny: not Brayden abandoning me at the airport or the mix-up with the town car or the fact that I’m sitting next to a man who Brayden will be playing alongside every day.
A man who is possibly flirting with me. Not funny, but a little ironic perhaps: I’ve been an A student all my life, breezing through classes with very little effort.
Now I’m going into a situation I’m clearly unprepared for.
I shouldn’t even be looking at Asher: not the amused curve of his lips or his arms in the snug sleeves of his T-shirt that looks soft and wash-faded and nothing like the polos and button-ups Brayden prefers.
There’s a slight hole in the collar that offers the dark flash of tattoo ink underneath.
I won’t look at him, talk to him, laugh along with him.
I turn myself to the window to hide my answering smile against the glass. After a second, I realize he can see me in the reflection, so I school my face into a frown and vow that this will be my last-ever interaction with Asher Adler.
Twenty minutes later, the driver pulls up to Brayden’s house, a McMansion that screams new money from its ostentatious front columns to the new sod tiled across the front lawn. That’s the old Savannah talking: the Savannah who could afford to be picky.
Asher gives a low whistle but doesn’t say anything else. I texted Brayden when we were five minutes out, but when the driver parks, no one’s outside to greet me.
“Thanks,” I say to the driver, before realizing I don’t have any cash to tip him with. “I can get my bags.”
I climb out of the vehicle—and so does Asher, who immediately goes to the popped trunk.
“Really,” I protest, “my suitcases aren’t that heavy.”
Asher casts a long look at the house, the darkened windows and unmoving front door. “Forsyth doesn’t know that.”
It’s blunt, way too much for some guy who I just met.
Something in my gut flares. I’ve made my own choices to end up on Brayden’s pristine driveway, in front of a house so new it probably smells like paint fumes.
Brayden is going to be my husband for the next two years.
Part of my literal job is to make sure he looks good to other people. Especially his teammates.
I clench my jaw so hard I feel an answering throb in my head. Don’t. As if migraines ever listen. “I’m fine. I don’t want to keep you.”
That gets the slight rise of Asher’s dark eyebrows.
His eyelashes are black without mascara.
I’m not noticing anything about them or about the rest of him, and he needs to get the hell out of this driveway so I can concentrate on important things like unloading my suitcases and carrying them into my shiny, ugly new house.
The trunk is unlatched. I push it open all the way and contemplate how to get my first case out of the car and onto the ground. Poor little rich girl has to haul her own luggage.
It’s only one suitcase, a lift of all of five feet. I seize it, bend with my knees, suck in a breath that’s mostly hot, humid Southern air. I have it halfway to the ground when the muscles in my back and arms start to shake. Then, suddenly, the suitcase lightens.
Asher, grabbing its side handle, pulling the suitcase from my grip. “Here, princess, I got this.”
Princess. I hate that word, particularly said in that tone. But he lowers the suitcase to the pavement, then repeats the process with the next one, the corded muscles in his arms standing out with effort. “What’d you pack in these, anyway?” he asks.
“My favorite rock collection, obviously.”
“To match that one on your finger, no doubt.” He eyes the house again, then holds out something—his phone. “Put your number in. Call if you need anything.”
I shouldn’t. What would Brayden think if he saw this—me typing my number in his teammate’s phone? “Will that get you to leave?” I ask Asher.
Asher snorts. “Yeah.”
“Fine.” I type in my number and give him back his phone.
A second later, a text comes through. A wink emoji. “So you remember the consequences of losing an eye.”
What about the consequences of befriending my fake husband’s teammate? “Thank you for your help. Really, I can get my luggage from here.”
Asher gives me a long look, then mutters something that sounds a lot like, You shouldn’t have to.
And I try not to think about that, or about his gaze on my back, as I wheel my suitcases up the front path and into the start of my brand-new life.