Chapter 8 Amelia #2
“You want money? A contract?” He presses in closer, crowding me against the counter, his hand sliding from my jaw to the back of my neck.
“We’ll sign one.” His thumb strokes once, slow and possessive, and his gaze pins me in place.
“You want to control the narrative? You’ve got it.
” He leans in even lower, the edge of a grin ghosting his mouth.
“I’ll say we were dating secretly, that I chased you down and fell for you first.”
I raise a brow, and a slow, knowing smirk curves my lips. “And you didn’t?”
He laughs, pulling himself away. “Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answers to.”
I stare him down, refusing to blink. My gaze drags slowly over his chest, the sweat still slicking his skin, before snapping back to his face with a sharp lift of my brow.
He exhales hard, as his hands scrub down his face before bracing on the counter again. When he finally looks up, his blue eyes lock on mine, stripped bare of all the cocky grins and goofy bravado.
He pushes off the counter, taking slow steps until the heat of him is pressing against me, again. “You can live here, rent-free. Use my kitchen, paint the walls black, and tattoo your art across every goddamn surface. I don’t care.”
His hand comes up, hesitating, then cups my jaw as his thumb is dragging over the edge of my cheekbone. His gaze burns, intense enough to set me on fire.
“I just…” his voice cracks, low and raw, before he steadies it, firmer this time, leaving no room to question. “…I need you.
My breath catches before I can stop it, his hand’s warm and heavy on my jaw, his words still hanging in the air like smoke.
I need you.
No joke, no grin to soften it, just pure, honest truth.
Fuck, it rattles me.
I force a scoff, tilting my chin higher against his grip, refusing to let him see how much the confession cracks me open.
“You don’t get to need me, Hayes,” I say, my arms still folded tightly across my chest, even as my skin tingles where his thumb traces my cheekbone.
“You’re the quarterback. The golden boy. You don’t need anything.”
A beat passes.
His jaw flexes, and he exhales slowly through his nose, blue eyes steady on mine. He wets his lips, his thumb pressing a little firmer against my skin. “So… what do you want, Amelia?”
I don’t hesitate for a second. “My own tattoo studio.”
His brows shoot up, a grin tugging at the corner of his mouth. He leans down, lowering himself until his mouth hovers dangerously close to mine. “Damn, straight to the point.” His eyes linger on me as a low chuckle dances across my lips.
I smirk, shifting my weight onto one hip, letting him see I’m dead serious. “You wanted an answer. That’s mine. No games, Hayes. If I’m signing up for this circus, I’m walking away with something that’s mine.”
I stir awake slowly, tangled in sheets that definitely aren’t mine. The mattress is too soft, the room too warm, and the faint smell of Maverick surrounds me like a taunt. Shifting slowly, I feel something warm and wrinkly pressed against my hip.
Oh my god, please let that not be Maverick’s dick.
I stay perfectly still, heart pounding, praying I don’t have to process that level of trauma before coffee. The weight shifts again, pressing closer.
Please, pleaseeeee.
My eyes flutter open, and I dare risk a glance down.
Oh, thank god, it’s not him.
It’s just Rex.
He’s curled into a tight, suspicious little meatloaf, his hairless body radiating heat, with his face tucked into the throw pillow, snuggled against my hip.
Soft, early morning light leaks in through the oversized windows, painting long shadows across the floor. The faint scent of Maverick’s cologne clings to the throw blanket he tossed over me sometime in the night.
I stretch slowly with my arms overhead, spine cracking as I untangle myself from the blanket.
It’s suspiciously quiet.
I pad barefoot into the bathroom, dragging sleep and residual irritation behind me. The tiles are cool beneath my feet, and the light above the vanity flickers softly to life when I flip the switch. I blink hard, squinting against the sudden glow, and step up to the mirror…
I freeze.
Right in the center of it, crooked, bold, and impossible to miss, is a neon pink sticky note with the unmistakable scrawl of a man who definitely wrote it in Sharpie and almost certainly didn’t think twice.
Morning, dollface :)
If you’re reading this:
1. My back hurts from the couch, but it’s ok, I still love u
2. You’re still here, which feels like a win
I know last night was a lot.
like… a lot a lot
I get it if you wanna run, but if you don’t?
I left coffee on the counter and a hoodie that smells like me.
(Some say it’s better than therapy. Those people are me.)
Anyway, think about it.
Or don’t.
You can stay and glare at me forever.
I’ll still think you’re hot.
-Maverick (your totally chill, emotionally stable, fake future husband.)
I stare at it for way too long.
My reflection stares back at me, hair wild, tank top slightly askew, and a sharp ache behind my eyes that I hadn’t realized I’d been carrying since he said those five stupid words.
“I need a fake marriage.”
I should’ve said no. I should’ve walked away when he proposed this insane deal. Because if I stay close, if I play wife to Maverick Hayes, I’m opening a door I swore I’d nailed shut years ago. But the second he asked me what I wanted, I caved.
Pathetic.
I should be furious. I should yank it off the mirror and toss it in the trash.
A reluctant pull at the corner of my mouth, my face betraying me, something about his idiotic note, and the fact that he wrote it at all, pokes a crack into the armor I’ve been clinging to since the moment I walked into his house.
I press my fingers lightly to the sticky paper, as if it might vanish the second I admit I don’t hate it.
Because I don’t.
I hate him for being a dumbass, sure, for blindsiding me with something that should’ve come with a PowerPoint and a goddamn legal team, for walking around this place shirtless like it makes up for not using his words.
But the note?
The stupid Sharpie handwriting, the smiley face, and the fact that he thought to leave it at all?
That part gets to me, and I hate that it does.
Fuck it.