Chapter 21
Wade
If Ari thinks she can keep up with me at dinner, she has another thing coming.
I’m on one, and nobody can stop me.
I wasn’t planning for the evening to go this way. I literally thought this would be a normal date. I was excited, even.
And then Ari opened the door in that dang black dress…and had me.
I’m man enough to admit when a woman completely destabilizes me, and that’s what her sweet femininity did.
Then everything changed once we got in the car.
She was all about the fakeness.
And okay, it wounded me a little bit. Because I thought maybe she was treating this like a real date too, but she’s not.
Fine.
FINE.
But I’m not going to sit here like some shy puppy while she controls this whole situation. I’m going to win this bet, and there’s nothing she can do about it.
“Miss Langford,” I say, holding out her chair.
There's a gleam in her eye that I should be worried about, but I’m not.
Before she sits down, she reaches up and fixes my lapel.
“There.” Her fingers smooth unnecessarily slowly down the front of my jacket. I turn my chin away, briefly closing my eyes to counter my body’s reaction. “You looked disheveled, honey bear.”
Honey bear?
My face turns back to her as my brows climb toward my hairline.
Of all the names available in the English language, that’s what she chose?
Such an amateur.
Once she’s seated, I reach around her for her napkin.
The movement is slow and filled with unnecessary eye contact.
The gleam from earlier still holds as I tuck the napkin in the neckline of her dress like it’s a bib for some BBQ ribs-eating contest. My knuckles brush the warm skin near her collarbone, but I’m choosing to ignore everything about that. I have work to do.
“There,” I say flatly. “Now you won’t spill.”
That’s when dinner becomes a battlefield.
Food gets passed around the table, but instead of filling our own plates, we start spooning massive portions onto each other’s.
A heaping pile of potatoes on mine. “I know how much you love your starches.”
A ridiculous amount of green beans on hers. “Fiber will help with your digestion issues.”
We’re a tangle of arms and spoons as we reach across each other, fighting to fill open real estate on each other’s plates until we both have so much food in front of us it would take us all night and stretched stomachs to get through it.
I stab into my salad, noticing for the first time the puzzled look on my sister’s face across from me, but I don’t care. It’s game on. I smile sweetly as I chew like nothing is amiss.
“So, Ari,” Sadie says, trying to start a meaningful conversation. “I hope you’ll tell us how your and Wade’s relationship came to be, because he won’t tell me anything about the two of you.”
“You don’t have to be shy about us.” Ari pinches my chin between her thumb and bent knuckle as if I were a child.
“Not shy,” I retaliate, taking my own napkin to dab at the corner of her lips. “It’s just a boring story.”
“Not boring at all.” Ari leans into my touch, which is a surprise. “Tell them about the faculty meeting.”
Oh, we’re improvising now.
“Right. The faculty meeting.”
Her eyes sparkle. “You know, when you accidentally admitted to the entire staff that you had a crush on me and were dying to ask me out.”
I crinkle my nose at her. “Did I do that?”
“You absolutely did.” Her smile is triumphant. “Remember? You said that you’ve been waiting around for me to move back home to Autumn Ridge, pining for me for years.”
I slowly turn my head toward her. “I did say that.” Then my hand rests on her knee beneath the table. She tenses, and I can’t help but smile smugly as I steal a bite of steak directly off her plate.
“But then”—she sighs as if it’s sad—“you got so nervous when you tried to talk to me, you were physically shaking. There may have been a stutter as well.”
“Aww,” my sister says immediately, and I’m in shock that any part of our behavior is being aww-ed at. “Still, I can’t believe you two are dating. I just picture you as friends only.”
“Every good relationship is built on a foundation of friendship.” I squeeze Ari’s thigh under the table, and immediately, there’s a high heel that comes down hard over my big toe. My free hand fists over my mouth to cover up the pain.
“So, this is an actual relationship?” Jaxon asks from the other end of the table. “You’re not just playing around?”
Am I playing around? Because sometimes my feelings for Ari feel less like a game and more like…something different.
Either way, I think my best friend is on to us. How could he not be? We’re currently seeing who can out-fake-date the other, and it’s absolute chaos.
Ari escalates things by resting her chin lightly on my shoulder. “When there’s a man as great as Wade in front of you, you don’t play around.”
Her words make me pause.
When there’s a man as great as Wade in front of you, you don’t play around.
There’s not a woman in the world who’s ever uttered that phrase and truly meant it. Could Ari’s feelings for me be starting to feel less like a game too?
She grabs the lapel of my jacket tightly and pulls me closer. “You snatch him up and hold on tight.”
No, she’s still in fake-dating game mode. I was stupid to think otherwise.
Her index finger moves to my face, brushing down my mustache. That’s when I pull out a tiny, little comb from my pocket and begin combing through my ‘stache too. Ari grabs it from my hand and takes over the combing. I move my lips downward, giving her better access.
Archer Kade literally chokes on his drink.
I mean, I’m barely holding it together as Ari bats her eyes up at me, making the whole mustache-combing spectacle even more ridiculous.
Jaxon bites back his smile. “Wow, this is an intense relationship, then?”
I pull it together, looking back at my friend with a straight face. “You have no idea. The other day, Ari made me soup because I said I had a sore throat. She simmered the broth for hours.”
“I simmered the broth for hours,” she repeats solemnly—almost robotically—as she nods beside me.
That gets a suppressed laugh from Sadie.
“See?” I dramatically point at Ari, then whip my head to look at her. “If that isn’t love, then I don’t know what is.”
Archer leans forward, looking into both of our eyes. “I mean, I don’t know y’all well, but are you two drunk or something?”
You know it’s bad when the cowboy has had enough.
A small laugh gets through before I clamp my lips shut. There’s a slight shoulder shake from Ari beside me. She’s about to lose it too.
I clear my throat, gaining composure. “No.” But the next sentence comes out more like a giggle than speaking. “Why…would…you think that?”
Ari immediately covers her mouth with her hand.
“Either you’re drunk, or you two are crazy,” Archer says.
That does it for me.
Laughter spits out of me in the most uncontrolled manner. Ari’s not far behind. And pretty soon, we’re both laughing so hard we can’t look at each other or anyone else at the table.
My head rests in my hands when I hear Archer say, “You two are weird.”
“Very weird,” Sadie agrees.
Jaxon puffs out a laugh. “Yeah, they are, but at least they’re having fun together.”
I sit up and look at Ari. She’s wiping the tears from her eyes from laughing so hard. For the first time tonight, neither of us is trying to win. We’re just two people cry-laughing together, and that’s when I realize this is the most fun I’ve ever had with a woman in my entire life.
Now I crave more moments like this.
“I like whatever is wrong with you,” I say.
Her smile grows. “I like whatever is wrong with you too.”