18. 18
“Whew. That was long. And a little draining.” I peer over at Miles sitting in the driver’s seat. “Don’t get me wrong. I like them. A lot. Much better than my parents. Still, I can’t believe you live so close to your family. You do that all the time.”
He watches the road but smirks. “I don’t normally bring home a celebrity wife. It’s not usually that intense. I love living near my family.”
“Really?”
“You don’t miss yours at all?” he asks, glancing over at me.
“Nope.” But that isn’t completely true. “I miss my sister… and my grandmother.” I haven’t talked to Gram in so long. Long enough to make me ashamed. “And it’s better now that my parents split. Together they’re a ticking time bomb. But I’m either tracking down my dad only to fight for his attention—he likes to give it all to his addiction—or I’m counting down the minutes until I leave my mother and the lecture about the many ways I’ve disappointed her.”
“What does she have to complain about?”
“Plenty. Don’t you know? I am a horrid letdown of a daughter.”
“I highly doubt that, Delaney. You’re successful and smart—”
“And beautiful.” I hold up my finger. “Don’t forget beautiful.”
His lips perk up in a grin at my sarcastic tone. “You are beautiful,” he says with all the sincerity of a nun under oath.
My cheeks warm. I don’t know why. My mother has been telling me I’m a beautiful disappointment my entire life. I’ve never really doubted that I’m pretty. Just that I use it incorrectly. Though using looks for any gain never felt right to me. But Claire Jones says I’ve wasted my best asset.
“Beautiful, but no beauty queen.”
Miles” brow furrows as if he”s not understanding, and clearly, he isn”t. “You want to be a beauty queen?”
“Crack bananas! No!” Oof, I hung out with the Baileys way too long. I’m using Coco’s made-up curse words.
“I’m confused. Should I drop it?”
“Good idea.” My eyes wander out the window, then back to Miles. “So, wedding night—”
I don’t mean to be so direct. And I’m certainly not implying anything, but my new husband goes cherry red, like a twelve-year-old boy who just walked down the ladies’ undies aisle at the mall. Red is cute on an already pretty darn handsome Miles Bailey. I’m not going to forget this.
Sorry, Miles.
“Where should we spend it?” I ask, completely changing my statement of “I’ll head back to the Airbnb” to a wide-open question just to see how deep that red will go.
“Aw. Well. I thought—”
“Oh, this is painful and fun all at the same time.” I tap his leg. “Miles, I’ll go back to my Airbnb. But how do we want to handle this? I’m pretty sure most madly-in-love newlywed couples would be sleeping in the same bed.”
“That’s a fair assessment.”
“But you don’t love me—”
He shakes his head, but his cheeks are still blooming that rosy shade of cherry red.
“Which is perfect. Because if you loved me, this whole entire thing would blow up in our faces.” I smack his leg. “Keep up the good work! And tell me how we’re going to handle this. People will notice.”
“People?”
“Yeah. Sorry. People. All the people will notice. I promise you.”
He stares out the car window, his eyes narrowed in thought. “We could do breakfast in the mornings—early enough that maybe people won’t notice if we haven’t been together all night.”
It could work. Maybe. But is it worth the risk? “My Airbnb has a spare room.”
“My loft has my food, paints, and my toothbrush.”
I flick my eyes to the roof of his truck. “Fine. We can try early mornings. But we may need an excuse. I swear, paparazzi don’t sleep.” Still, we haven’t been swarmed. I’m thankful for that. It’s one of the reasons I chose this little Idaho town: there isn’t a lot of action driving the paparazzi here. If I’m all that’s offered—and if I’m not that exciting—maybe they’ll all go away.