Chapter 22
Will: Still keeping your distance, Walker?
Tate: You tell me. The bed we share is a roomy queen.
Will: Walker. You can’t get distracted. This is her life we’re talking about.
Tate:...
Will: Tate.
Tate: I know. I’m sleeping on the floor. I’m not going to hurt her.
True to my agreement, I wore sweats to bed that night.
Tate had been serious about reinstating our boundaries.
He was still Tate, always at the ready with an inappropriate comment, but a new line had been drawn between us.
It was invisible to the eye but felt whenever he glanced away quickly or made sure that, whenever we were together, we were standing shoulder to shoulder, like good buddies.
He was trying to bring our hasty marriage back to a somewhat professional atmosphere. Which was good. Honorable. And for the most part, I was determined to do the same.
Unfortunately for me and for him, I hadn’t realized I’d grabbed the wrong pair of sweats from my bag until it was too late.
Tate was already in our room, lying on the floor on his bed, when I walked in from the bathroom.
I had just showered. My hair was wet, and the clothes I wore as pajamas were the ones I'd brought into the bathroom when I showered. Meaning, when I got out of the shower and realized I’d grabbed the wrong pair of sweats, it had been too late.
Why didn’t I just put back on the clothes I had before my shower?
Because I wore a dress I’d borrowed from Ann to wear to the rehearsal, and she’d told me to throw it down the laundry chute attached to the bathroom, which I had done.
So, it was either the sweats or my underwear, and all things considered, the sweats seemed better aligned to the overall goal.
I beelined for my bed when his voice stopped me.
“Will you catch the light?”
He was reading something on his phone. Occupied. Banking on that, I turned, flew to the doorway, and flipped off the light.
“No,” he groaned.
“What?” I asked, flinging myself into the bed and whipping the covers over top of me.
“No. You can’t wear sweats like that. That negates everything we’re trying to do here.”
A laugh bubbled out of me. “They’re sweats. I’m following all the rules.”
“When you wear sweats that say the word ‘juicy’ on the butt, the rules mean nothing to you.”
“Why were you looking?”
He paused. “We’re still married. I’m gonna look.”
My toes curled slightly at his admission. “Good to know.”
“What year is it? Why do you even have sweats that say that?”
A laugh sputtered out of me while I covered my face with my hands. “It was a joke between me, Reese, and Ari. We all found the same pair once at a thrift store. How could anyone resist that?”
He seethed out a breath. “Exactly.”
Though I couldn’t see him, my head turned toward his soft, almost annoyed voice. “What?”
“Nothing.”
We grew quiet. The only sound was the fan swirling overhead.
I liked having him here. The knowledge that we shared the same space brought me an inordinate amount of comfort.
Not only because of Leroy, but because…there was something so cozy and warm about being married.
And I wasn’t even really married, but I felt like I was getting a taste of it all.
Going from a me to a we. That thought felt dangerous.
But now, I was wide awake and hating how lonely this big dumb bed felt. Sleep would be hard to come by tonight.
From somewhere below me, Tate cleared his throat. “We still haven’t watched one of your movies…”
He left the end of his sentence with a question mark. He baited, cast his line, and caught me, hook, line, and sinking heart.
“Is this a hint? Mr. Annulment Line?”
“Just stating a fact. You’re the one reading into it.”
Alone on my big empty bed, I smiled.
“That’s a very interesting fact,” I said.
“I thought so.”
I bit my lip, unable to contain my grin. He was waiting for me. But I had to calm my racing, wildly beating heart first.
“I could pull one up on my laptop right now, if you wanted.”
Before I could blink, Tate was up and out of his bed. He grabbed my laptop from the desk and moved in beside me. We fixed our pillows just right, and soon, we were lying next to each other on our bed, my first co-written murder mystery, A Novel Way to Die, pulled up on the screen.
I hadn’t seen this movie since I’d attended the small, low-budget red carpet ceremony my company put on for the writers and actors and their families.
I’d forgotten how cheesy it was. In my self-righteous stand against romance, I’d forgotten there could be a heavy amount of cheese everywhere.
Maybe all genres have cheese and some predictability, even in a genre that’s supposed to be full of surprises.
“How are you handling the lack of profanity?” I asked midway through the movie.
“I’m replacing all the words with my own in my head.”
I laughed, my attention once again turning to the part where the investigators slipped in the trail of blood from the body they’d yet to find.
“Will you lean up for a sec?” Tate asked in my ear.
“Hmm?”
“Your pillow needs fixed.”
I leaned forward, only to watch as he pushed the pillow off to the side and replaced it with his arm.
When I looked at him in question, he only smiled.
“That’s better.”
Something fluttered in my belly, but I reined it all in to give him a look. A look that only made him grin wickedly and pull me down next to him. Obviously, I wasn’t in any frame of mind to resist anything, but I was going to make sure that he knew it was HIM crossing our barriers. Not me.
We ended the night the way I predicted the second Tate mentioned watching that movie. Because, just like the movies, maybe we were all a little predictable.
I had fallen asleep curled against Tate’s chest with my hand on his stomach.
He had cocooned me against him with one arm around my waist, holding me close.
Both of us had claimed we were too tired to move when the movie ended.
Too relaxed to honor the line we’d set only hours earlier.
Too cozy to move out of this strange and confusing marriage-induced hazy bliss.
I was too happy to have him by my side to want him to go.
Just as predicted.
The Jaxon/Landrie wedding spared no expense. It felt like the prom king and queen had just gotten married. Except, these people were the prom king and queen that you really liked.
The ceremony was in a wooded area just outside of Horseshoe Holler. It was an autumn haven, with trees of all colors dropping leaves on the ground throughout the ceremony. The smell of dirt and woods added to the rustic ambiance.
We hadn’t seen or heard a word from Leroy since our wedding, which put us at a standstill.
Did he hear about our wedding? Was he biding his time?
Had he tucked his tail and gone back to where he came from?
All questions that left no answer and no solution that satisfied.
Either way, the longer he was missing in action, the more agitated Tate became.
He was a groomsman at the wedding, and would be standing in the front near Jaxon.
So it shouldn’t have surprised me when Will came to sit beside me in the Walkers’ row in the front. But it did.
He greeted Tom and Ann warmly as we waited for the ceremony to begin. I was grateful that he seemed in a better mood.
“Did you rent that suit?” I asked, my eyes taking in the sharp, dark-gray suit he wore.
“This old thing?” He was busy scanning the crowd. “How’s married life?”
“Have you decided to stop acting like a baby?” I asked, lifting an eyebrow at him.
“Can’t change anything about it now. I just hope you’re okay when you have to clean up your mess when this is all over.”
“He’s your friend. Don’t you like him?” I asked, whispering, as the entire audience stood for the bride’s entrance.
“I love the guy,” he said in a hushed tone as he stood. “But that doesn’t mean I want him breaking my sister’s heart for a job.”
I shushed him, his words leaving their mark, before I turned away.
Jaxon looked handsome, waiting near the preacher, watching something just down the aisle.
The entire audience turned as the bridal music began, and Landrie was spotted on a beautiful white horse being led through the trees toward the aisle by her father.
Once she arrived, her father helped her down from the horse before walking her the rest of the way.
Everything was beautiful, down to the tiniest detail. Months and months of planning had gone into this wedding, and it showed. But the details couldn’t hold my thoughts for long. My gaze kept drifting to the dark-haired groomsmen standing near Jaxon.
Three days ago, we walked into a court of law and got married.
We hadn’t bared our souls with vows or planned anything beyond just getting us there.
But there had been real affection for Tate that came out of me that day.
He held my hand, wiped away my tears, and married me to keep me safe.
It was ours, that moment. And when it all ended, we would have something sweet to take with us.
Something real and raw that wouldn’t get lost in all the details.
Would I change any of it if given the chance?
No.
I don’t think I would.
Jaxon surprised everyone and, instead of jokes, his vows were touching and sweet. Landrie’s confessions of love brought down the house. And beside me, Ann kept dabbing at her eyes, happy and beaming, but with a tinge of melancholy.
During a violin solo in the middle of the ceremony, she patted me on the knee and leaned close. “My son can’t keep his eyes off of you.”
My eyes flitted automatically over to Tate. He was indeed watching me. He didn’t flinch or look away, only raised his eyebrows in question.
I just smiled back, my stomach tingling.
“I’m so sorry I missed your wedding,” Ann whispered. “It all happened so fast, and then I thought it might be easier if you didn’t have an audience. But I’m wondering now if it was more real than we initially thought.”