13 Cate
Cate
He pushes his plate away from the edge of the coffee table and falls back on the couch with a groan. “I feel miserable.” Only some sparse rice remains. He can eat, but I’m not surprised, considering the man in front of me seems nearly twice my height.
I’m still surprised he’s here, though. Shane Faris sitting in my living room full of food we ordered together was not something I imagined when I started my day.
But here he is, scrunched up on my couch that fits perfectly in this space, yet he’s too tall to be comfortable for long.
His presence takes up even more space than his large frame.
Seeing him was exhilarating, and he made the effort to see me after landing.
But the bedroom incident . . . Every time I start to give a little, to yield some of the protection of my heart, I see him separate from the image I perceived and the one he gives off.
I stumble past attraction into the feelings I’m developing for him.
That connection I once felt has reignited, and that scares me. But then that damn phone buzzes again.
Never thinking I was the jealous type, I’m not sure I could handle his infamy with the ladies. The mayhem of his life would crash into this little life I’ve built. And when it’s over, I’d be the one stuck cleaning up the wreckage to my heart while he moves on to someone else.
I touch my lips, still staring at him.
It would have been nice to share one kiss. Just to know what I’m missing.
Too late now.
“Me too. Why’d you let me eat that much?” I join in the misery, rubbing my stomach as if that will ease how stuffed I feel or the regret of what happened in the bedroom. Kicking my legs out, I prop my feet on the table in front of me.
“I wasn’t coming between you and that last eggroll.” Holding his hands up, he chuckles. “I need these babies.”
“Ha.” I try to giggle, but it kind of hurts to mix laughter with that much food in my belly and the remorse weighing me down. “Make it go away.”
“Think about something else. Where do you go for your happy place?”
“Physically? Hawaii. When I’m getting a pap smear? I also take a trip to Hawaii in my thoughts.”
“Hawaii and a pap smear are quite the image.” His eyes are hard to read while staring at me indifferently. “That’s a lot of information.”
“Too much?” I ask, rolling my head to the side, too lazy to turn it. “I forget that other people don’t talk about medical procedures so openly.”
“I can handle you.”
His referring to me over the topic has me reevaluating everything.
Does he want to kiss me? Or was that all me in the bedroom?
Why did he come to see me the same day he returned to LA?
He agreed to come over and let me feed him when he has all those text girls to tend to.
I’m so confused. He makes my heart and head twist the logic to what I want it to be instead of what it is, what we are, and maybe all we should be. Friends.
What if we were more?
What if we could make it work?
Is it right to play with my heart that way, to talk myself into what I know will be a disaster? Predictable and orderly are the furthest from what his life offers. It will only be a lose-lose for me once it’s done.
I drag myself back to sitting in the chair like a proper human and then tuck my legs under me, needing to get to the business at hand instead of the ridiculous notion of me, Cate Farin, dating a rock star. “Want to talk about what I discovered in my research?”
“Do we have to?” His eyes don’t even bother coming my way. His socked feet are suddenly way more interesting to him.
I laugh, but he doesn’t. “Oh, you’re being serious?” I’m now left guessing how to broach the topic. “We don’t have to if you’re too tired to talk tonight.”
He sits up, looking at me like I’m dragging him to the dentist for a root canal. “It’s fine,” he says, releasing a long sigh. “We have to deal with it eventually, so we might as well get the options on the table.”
I’m not exactly feeling the love, but I hope to turn it around. Or at least share a good laugh with him. “We have two,” I say. When he just stares at me unamused, I continue, “We can get an annulment, which would help us avoid a lot of other issues, like the press finding out and exposing you—”
“And you.”
My throat thickens from the thought of having my life invaded. “Right. Another thing an annulment would do is erase the marriage from record like it never happened.” Sitting forward, he rests his arms on his legs, life returning to his eyes. “And we won’t need to involve attorneys.”
“This sounds like the best option. How do we make it happen?”
“I couldn’t agree more.” I readjust in the chair, biting my lip.
I already know how he’s going to react, so I say it and hope for the best. “We’d have to appear in front of a judge together and make our appeal.
Two options might apply to us in order to get the annulment granted.
We need to figure out which one we’re going with and be on the same page. ”
His brows pull together as he sits back again, looking so comfortable on my couch that I admire the trust in his eyes before I reveal the kicker. “You’re really building the suspense. What are they?”
“Fraud, which sounds tricky. It’s basically saying one of us defrauded the other into marriage.”
“No.” He glances away as the idea rolls around his expression. “That comes with legal issues tied to it, and if anyone ever got wind of it, it would ruin my career. What’s the other?”
I take a deep breath and rush the words out. “We never consummated the marriage.”
“Not a lie. This is our out.” Still staring at me, hope comes in the widening of his eyes. “We don’t have to prove it, do we?”
“No,” I reply with that image now mortifying me. “We just have to agree it never happened.”
“Easy,” he says, brushing his hands together like this issue is done and dusted. “We can’t have sex before we end the marriage, and we’re golden.”
Not a question, but a statement that leaves me narrowing my eyes to riddle through. Maybe it’s not a riddle at all. “You make it sound like we will right after.”
A shrug and a cocky smirk make themselves at home on his handsome face.
I’m not sure what to make of this, mainly because I’m not opposed to the idea.
Sex is different from dating. Reason always sneaks in, though.
“We didn’t have sex when we were married, so why would we do it when we’re not?
” And why am I pondering this as if it’s a real possibility? An opportunity even?
“Never say never.”
Straightening my face, I lean in closer, and whisper, “Never, but I’ve always been ambitious.”
I swear a growl rumbles around his chest before he takes a deep breath. “So the no sex thing seems to be our only option. For now.”
“Forever. And yes, it’s the best option we have.” I weave my fingers together and hold my hands over my still full belly. “So when the judge asks us for the reason, we’ll agree you couldn’t perform your husbandly duties, and he’ll grant the annulment.”
Sitting forward again, he stares at me like I’m speaking another language. “What do you mean I couldn’t perform?”
“Yeah,” I say, hesitating. “That’s part of the appeal.”
“Doesn’t sound appealing to me at all.”
“No, but we must have a reason to annul, and for that specific option . . .” I use my hands to explain, but it’s my nerves, knowing I have to go into detail.
“To use the not consummating the marriage excuse, we’ll need to go into why you haven’t made love to me.
Why you can’t make love to me. It’s strictly performance-based, so you’ll swear that you have an incurable case of—”
“No fucking way.” The horror on his face speaks volumes over his actual words.
He’s up and storming toward the kitchen.
Turning, he paces to the sliding glass door, but the seven steps he takes to cover my apartment don’t appear to satisfy the turmoil.
Stopping on the other side of the coffee table, he clenches his jaw.
“There’s no fucking way I’m claiming I can’t perform my duties.
I can perform on stage and in the bedroom just fine, sweetheart. ”
“Prove it.”
What the—I can’t breathe until I realize I said that in my head. Oh my God. Thank goodness. I drop my head into my hands, needing a reprieve from the pressure cooker where we’re trapped. “There are no other solutions.”
“Except divorce,” he replies, defeat tainting his tone.
We’re here but apart. I hate feeling like this fight is between us instead of the situation we’re in.
He’s been quiet for so long that I’m afraid to break the peace.
I watch as he returns to the patio door to stare out like there’s more than cars to look at.
He crosses his arms over his chest in quiet contemplation, his breathing finally evening out again.
What can I say that won’t upset him even more? But the silence is killing me. What is he thinking? I angle my body in his direction, and say, “I’m sorry.”
“It’s not you, Cat.” When he glances back at me, I don’t see the assurance I once did. No humor dances in his eyes. No flirty intentions in a smirk. All I see is the guy who said he’s exhausted from his own life.
Lowering my feet, I pad across the short span of hardwood floors and stand next to him, staring ahead. Bold for me with him, but he’s so different than I imagined. There’s no chip on his shoulder when he’s with me.
Friends can comfort each other, but I wonder why I keep justifying what feels right instead of leading with my heart when it comes to Shane. His status, his fame, his wealth has never been weaponized against me. I need to put down my own defenses and see him for who he really is.
I rest my cheek on his arm. “We don’t have to decide tonight. We don’t have to rush into anything either.”
His arm comes around my waist, holding me in the nook of his body like I belong there. It feels so natural that I peek up at him in awe.