11. Chapter 11
After Beck’s dare to keep up the fa?ade, I texted my sister and mom, letting them know my decision to stay on as Victoria’s calligrapher.
Hailey turned my phone into a tiny fiesta. Celebratory emojis popped up like confetti on the screen.
Mom: In case you get nervous about where you are going, remember where you’ve been.
I cocked my head at my mom’s proverb-like message, but then the pictures started rolling in. First, it was of a book held open to reveal a quote written in bold—something I’d lettered a few years ago. Then came the picture of the pumpkin with our last name across the folds. And on and on the pictures came of all the work I’d done in the past: a mug for my choir director, a globe with a quote about wandering, and a chalkboard sign for my mom’s art classes.
By the time I reached the last picture, a set of ornaments with jolly phrases, my eyes stung. I could do this. I knew because I’d been doing it for years.
Mom’s texts powered me through the next week and a half when I worked on a drink menu board for the wedding. Progress was achingly slow, but I worked on it whenever I had a little extra time after work, sometimes sacrificing sleep to finish bigger chunks. One morning, I woke before my alarm—something that never happened—and seized the opportunity to finish it.
As I sat back and examined the board with its swooping subsections and severely straight drink options, I allowed myself a moment to appreciate my work. It had come out better than I expected.
Then, I looked at the time and jumped up. I had about seven minutes to squeeze my ass into my swimsuit and fire up the Keurig.
Beck inched his way into the water as I approached the lane. Feeling on top of the world for finishing a project and still making it to the pool mostly on time, I dove right in.
When I came up, adjusting my goggles, he stared at me. “God!”
“What?” I asked. It was an effort to force my mouth open, muscles steeled with the shock of the cold water.
“How do you do that?”
“Do what?” I barely managed to keep the shivering under control.
“Just dive in. I have to let each inch adjust to the temperature. And even then, it’s a struggle.”
“Sometimes you have to get in before you’re ready.”
Beck shook his head and looked at the opposite wall, avoiding my gaze. “I think it’s a little different for guys.”
My cheeks warmed at the thought of him and his. . . more sensitive parts. I kept my head down as I snatched my pair of Aftershocks, which had landed next to his headphones when I dropped them to dive in.
“Well,” I said, “at the rate you are going, you’ll probably be up to your shoulders by the time we start our morning meeting. Might have to join us on Zoom.”
“Ha, ha,” he answered dryly.
I dove back in, swimming away before he could hear my giggle. Halfway down the lane, I trod water to turn my headphones on. I hadn’t even made it to the other side when I realized it wasn’t my music assaulting my eardrums but Beck’s. I’d accidentally grabbed his headphones. I actually had the exact song loaded on mine, but while my version was gentle and stripped-down, Beck’s was a cacophony of electric guitar and growly screaming. I pushed the next button, hoping for something better, but no. Same deal, just a different song.
As soon as I made it to the other side, I ripped them off, my ear drums seeking relief. Beck popped up next to me. He held out a hand for his headphones, thrusting mine at me as if they would burn him if he held on any longer.
“It’s like my music but declawed and neutered,” Beck said, his perfect features pinched into a disgusted expression. It was kind of cute on him, in an annoying way.
“Well, your music is like my music shotgunned an energy drink and got a face tattoo.”
“Enjoy your lullabies,” he said, nose still scrunched, body posed to push off the wall.
“Enjoy your hearing. While you can.”
At that, he smiled and kicked off the wall in a flawless butterfly stroke.
Still stinging from the burn to my music, I found myself trying to catch up to him. As if that would stick it to him. Not that it mattered because I never came close. His strokes were effortless. When I stopped for a drink at the same time he did, I struggled to keep my breathing under control. On the other hand, he acted as though he had gone for a walk instead of swimming eight hundred yards at the speed of a shark.
“How the hell,” I started between gulps of air, “do you do that Aquaman turn in the water?”
He laughed. “The flip turn?”
“Yes! That thing.”
“It’s easy.”
I gave him a look.
“Here, I’ll show you.” He floated on his back and did a slow backstroke to give us some space, and I definitely did not get a good look at the way his abs worked with the movement, or the thick line of hair that started at his lower stomach and disappeared into his swim trunks. He flipped back over, treading as he explained, “When you approach the wall, you are going to duck your head as if swimming down, but instead, tuck your knees into your chest. Then, kick off the wall while twisting back to your original position. But now facing the opposite side. Obviously.”
“Obviously,” I mumbled as if anything were obvious about the directions he’d given.
I watched closely as he modeled the movement, slower for my benefit but still a blur of twists in the water.
“Okay,” he said after surfacing. “Your turn. Remember to curl, twist, and kick.”
I thought about refusing. But the flip-turn looked pretty cool. Besides, I still felt invincible after finishing the menu board. Sure, I’d master the flip turn on the first try. I approached the wall, swam down, and twisted into some sort of mess, causing water to burn through my sinuses. I surfaced, coughing.
Yeah. Real easy. Natural, even—like folding a fitted sheet.
I expected Beck to laugh at the attempt, but instead, he came ready with suggestions for improvement. I didn’t know which was worse.
“Not a bad first try. This time, make sure to blow water through your nose with the twist.”
I did. And though my nose was spared the burn, upon completing the twist, I kicked out, only for my toes to touch seemingly endless water.
“Okay. This time, get closer to the wall. You have to get almost right up to it.”
I did get close, so close I looked up in time to see the tiled concrete an inch from my face. And smacked right into it. The wall was not forgiving.
“Are you okay?” he asked as I came up.
I ripped off my goggles and swim cap, rubbing my forehead with a string of curse words.
“Fine.” I pressed a palm to the ache in my skull and winced.
I opened my eyes and found him looking worried. “Let me see.”
In other circumstances, I would have pushed his hand away, but the tenderness in his voice surprised me.
I’d never gotten a good look at the color of his eyes before. I knew they were brown, but that word seemed too dull to describe what I was looking at now. I had brown eyes. Beck’s eyes were fresh earth or a cup of coffee on a fall morning—caramel swirled in hazelnut—lively and surprisingly warm.
“Ouch,” he said, eyebrows drawn. “Unfortunately, I don’t think it’s bad enough to justify missing work.”
I started to laugh, but it died down as his feather-light thumb grazed my forehead and lingered at my hairline. His eyes drifted back to mine, then trailed down the bridge of my nose.
“What?” I asked, rubbing the area in search of a blemish.
He smiled. “You have so many freckles.” And at that, his eyes seemed to follow the trail out to my cheeks and then down to my lips. I stopped breathing as I realized how close we were, how entranced we both seemed by the proximity. Beck snapped out of it before I did, removing his hand and retreating a couple of feet. He cleared his throat. “Let’s give the flip turns a break for today. Okay?”
He was back in the water before I could utter a response. The next several laps, I saw how fast he could go in the water. Beck torpedoed past me continuously, and he didn’t stop again until he finished his workout.
When I approached the bench with my things, Beck was already there with a towel wrapped loosely around his hips while he checked his phone. I’d seen his stomach before, and I knew he still had swim trunks under that towel. But as beads of water rolled down that middle line separating his abs, my jaw slackened, and heat bloomed in my lower belly.
I snapped my eyes back to his face, chiding myself for drooling over Beckett Atteridge, Senior-level Asshole.
He scowled at his phone.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Nothing,” he said, tossing his phone into his gym bag. But as his zipper got caught, trying to close it, he exhaled loudly and relented. “Victoria and my ex are best friends. So I expected her at the wedding. I didn’t, however, think she’d come all the way from California for a wedding shower. But Victoria said she RSVP’d.”
It shocked me to see Beck lose his composure over an ex. It turned out Poseidon was a mere human like the rest of us.
“You still have feelings for her,” I guessed.
A sticky sensation spread across my chest, and I surprised myself when I put a name to it: jealousy—something I had no right to feel about Beck.
“No. It’s not like that.” He huffed out a frustrated breath. “It’s just awkward.”
“Because Victoria and your ex are close?”
“Best friends since college. Victoria introduced us a couple of years ago when Reagan moved to Houston for a job. She hadn’t counted on us hitting it off.” Beck looked at the swim cap in his grip. “She begged me not to pursue anything with Reagan, afraid our relationship would complicate their friendship.” He smiled faintly. “But I think her making Reagan forbidden only made me want her more,” he said, running a hand through his curls.
“So, you dated anyway and broke up?” I finished as I toweled off my calves.
“It’s a little more complicated than that, but essentially, yes.”
“Complicated how?”
It felt weird, peering into Beck’s past. We weren’t close enough for a conversation about exes, but I could hear the tinge of pain in his voice. I had to know more.
“Last year, Reagan and I decided to spend Thanksgiving apart.” Beck sat on the bench next to me, gazing at the still water as he spoke, “My mom wanted me at their place. Reagan wanted to go back to her parents” house in California. It wasn’t a big deal. We’d decided we could spend Christmas together without family.
“But while she was there, she sent me a text saying, ‘Last night was amazing. Can’t believe we did that with my grandma in the next room.’” I winced, but Beck kept going. “I called her right away. Obviously, she hadn’t meant to send the text to me, but I thought it was innocent—like maybe her friend had come over, and they got high in her grandmother’s sewing room.
“To Reagan’s credit, she told me the truth—that things were getting serious between her and another guy. She told me Tom already had a job in Santa Monica. That she didn’t feel at home in Texas, and she didn’t feel like herself when she was with me.”
My head snapped in his direction. “What a shitty thing for her to say.”
He shrugged. “We’d been talking about buying a house in California together, but I’d just started a new job in Houston and told her I didn’t feel right quitting so soon. I had no idea how homesick she was . . . That’s always weighed on me. And what she said about not feeling herself when with me—what kind of person does that make me?”
“Don’t do that,” I said, waiting until he looked back into my eyes so he could see how serious I was. “She got caught and was justifying her actions, probably as much to herself as she was to you.”
I realized, too late, that my tone held the bitter bite of someone who’d been a victim of cheating.
He looked at me, head cocked slightly to one side. “Were you cheated on too?”
“Yeah,” I conceded.
“You’re kidding.”
“Nope. Found my boyfriend fucking his, ‘I swear, there-is-nothing-going-on-between-us,’ friend on his couch.”
“What an idiot.”
The response came so quickly, it made me blush. Like he couldn’t believe anyone would cheat on me.
“Well, the same goes for your Reagan,” I said. “Anyway, at least I wasn’t in love with Chad. Things must have been serious between you and Reagan if you planned on moving to California with her.”
Beck avoided my gaze. “In any case, please don’t mention any of this to Victoria. I never told her the full story, only that it had been a mutual decision to end things.”
“You don’t think your sister should know?”
“No. Victoria asked us not to go out with each other. We ignored her request. So, it’s up to both Reagan and me to keep things civil.”
I considered that. “Why don’t you bring a date?” Beck’s eyes flicked to me as I continued. “She has her Tom. If you bring your own date, it will show you’ve both moved on. That your breakup was no big deal.”
“That’s not a bad idea,” he said but then gave me a level look. “Except for the fact that I don’t have a date on standby.”
If the man walked shirtless down the waterway for only a couple of minutes, he could have a collection of phone numbers from women ready to jump at the chance to hang on his arm, but I decided to keep that little nugget to myself.
I shrugged. “Sorry, Beck. Guess it’s all aboard the awkward train.”
A smile spread lazily across Beck’s face, and I realized my critical error—calling him his preferred name. “So, it’s Beck now?”
“Don’t get excited,” I said, zipping my duffle. “It’s going to be a case-by-case basis.”
I was tempted to work through my lunch to try and keep up with the towering load. But I needed a break. And if I were trying on Hailey’s life, she would work hard but play harder. Besides, of all the times I’d worked through lunch, had I ever felt caught up?
Absolutely not.
So, I closed out Excel and opened Pinterest as I enjoyed my Caesar salad. I found that even just looking at ideas for a vacation lifted my mood. I had a lot of pins on my board from a lot of different vacations. As I scrolled down, bright colors filled the screen with turquoise waters, white-sanded beaches, and fruity cocktails. I’d finally decided on Maui. Mainly because it was so green and beachy and not Florida. I had no interest in visiting the state Hailey had picked over me. Besides, if I was going to escape work by planning a dream vacation, it was go big or go home.
I clicked on a pin titled Budgeting for Maui. My gaze landed on the Budget side of the column. I frowned, already calculating how many weeks’ worth of groceries and months of rent one trip would eat. I couldn’t even let myself daydream about this trip without my credit card shriveling.
My mouse hovered over the X of the browser as Beck entered my cubicle.
“I’ll get you the meeting notes by the end of the day,” I said, waving him off.
“Did you get the text from Anna?” he asked, ignoring my attempt to get rid of him.
I flipped my phone over. I’d had it on silent so I could enjoy my lunch in peace. But, sure enough, she’d texted me.
Went in for my weekly exam and my doctor is making me go to the hospital. Apparently I’m 4 cm dilated.
“She’s having the baby?” I stupidly asked Beck.
He rubbed the back of his neck. “Looks that way.”
“But she’s not due yet. She’s still got a few weeks.”
I sent Anna a quick text, wishing her luck and asking her to keep me posted. Then, the realization hit me. And it hit me hard.
Anna was gone. The last good thing about this job.
Beck leaned against the edge of my desk. “That’s not too early, though, right? The baby will be okay.”
“Yeah, I’m sure everything will be fine,” I said, but my voice quivered ever so slightly at the end of the sentence.
“Hey, are you alright?” The tenderness in his voice surprised me. It almost made me want to cry more—like it permitted me to let my guard down.
Then I came to my senses. I refused to cry on Beckett’s shoulder today. I inhaled sharply, working to rally.
“Yeah. I’m fine. Does the team know?” I deflected. “Anna was in the middle of a workflow. We’ll need to divvy up her tasks.”
With Beck’s help, we notified the rest of the team about Anna and listed the things she hadn’t been able to finish. Wesley emailed back with a, Seems like you two have it covered. I angled the screen so Beck could read his response.
“Looks like it’s just you and me.”
He drummed his long fingers on my desk as he considered Wesley’s email. Between those fingers, his proximity as he leaned in close to read the screen, and his scent, my brain felt fuzzy. He wasn’t even trying to be sexy, which made me all the more annoyed. His everyday actions had me all worked up.
To be fair, it had been over a year since I caught Chad cheating on me, and I’d had neither the time nor the willpower to re-enter the dating scene. So, it had been a while for me.
Still, it’s not as though I had a visceral reaction to every man I encountered. Why, of all people, did it have to be for Beck?
“I know I’m still relatively new, but our team kind of sucks at acting like one,” Beck said, effectively knocking me from my lustful fog.
I snorted. “You get used to it.”
He looked at me. “That’s the problem. I don’t want to get used to it, neither should you.” Beck backed away. “I’ll be right back. Do not reply to that email.”
Not even five minutes later, Beck had responded to Wesley’s email.
Yep! Emily and I will knock out the workflow. We’ll leave the distribution of other tasks to you, Wes! Thanks!
My jaw could have hit the desk.
“Are you crazy?” I hissed as he returned to my cubicle, laptop, and rolling chair in tow.
“I was professional.” Beck nodded at the empty space next to me. “Do you mind if I work here? I think it would be easier to discuss the workflow in person rather than over messages?”
I was still stuck on his reply to Wesley. “You basically refused to do the other tasks.”
Beck sank onto the chair and logged into his laptop. “Senior-level Asshole perks. Remember?”
I shook my head, but I couldn’t keep from smiling. “Alright. Where should we start?”
To Beck’s credit, he worked with me nonstop to finish the workflow, that is, until four-thirty rolled around. It was Thursday, after all.
Beck looked down at the time. “I’m sorry. I’ve gotta go.”
“You know, Chili’s has their happy hour on other days besides Thursday.” I’d been joking, but I was also hoping he’d correct me with what he’d actually be doing.
No such luck. Instead, Beck chuckled lightly. “Thank you, Lane. You are a wealth of knowledge.”
I smiled at being able to make him laugh, but as soon as he left, I sighed. We’d made a lot of progress with the workflow, but there was still so much to do.
By six, I was kicking myself for taking that lunch break. The rest of the office was empty, except for a member of the cleaning staff who was currently vacuuming the huddle room. I decided to open YouTube and start a favorite playlist, sans headphones. The music floated into my cubicle, and I took a deep breath, willing the melody to loosen me up and calm me.
It worked a little too well. Within minutes, the yawns rolled out, one after another. I needed something stimulating, louder.
I thought of what I’d said about Beck’s music. Your music is like my music shotgunned an energy drink . . .
More energy was what I needed. I typed Taylor Swift Rock Cover into the search bar and got a plethora of results. I clicked on the first option—a band called Battered Keys. I rolled my eyes at the dramatic name, but the song sounded like what Beck had in his Aftershock headphones. Rock covers powered me through that workflow for about thirty minutes until a voice sounded from behind me.
“Are you listening to Battered Keys?” I jumped a good foot out of my seat, whirling to find Beck smiling like a cat. “Looks as though you are gaining some musical taste after all.”
“Jesus Christ!” I fumbled to exit out of YouTube, cutting off the music. “You scared the shit out of me!”
“Sorry,” he offered, “but I brought food.” I registered the bags of takeout in his arms, the spiced aroma of Indian food wafting into my cube. My mouth watered as Beck plopped one of the bags on my desk. “I hope chicken biriyani is okay.”
“Is this from the food truck down the street?” I opened my box and had to keep from full-on drooling at the sight of tender, seasoned chicken mixed in yellow rice.
Beck nodded. “The one that parks in front of the theater,” he confirmed, smiling as he dug out the utensils.
“This is my favorite.”
“I know.” He passed me a fork. “Anna told me.”
I tried not to read too hard into the fact that Beck had intentionally gotten me my favorite food and that I’d been a topic of conversation between him and Anna.
“What do I owe you?”
His smile lessened. “I know it’s been a long day for you. Please, let me do this one thing.”
“Okay . . . Thank you,” I said, cautious, almost as if I expected the real Beck to show up at any moment, the one I met on his first day at the office, the one who pulled me out of the waterway, then looked down at me as if I had two heads.
But this Beck, who was making himself quite comfortable in my cubicle again, seemed anything but that guy. I took in his change of clothes: jeans and a black T-shirt. The dark shirt made the red-inked flowers pop on his arm.
His fresh shower smell was more potent than usual, and his curls lazed on his head, heavy and still a little wet. I tried to guess what he could have scheduled every Thursday that would require going home to shower before coming back up here.
“Did you . . . go for a workout?”
Beck used his fork to bat around the rice. “Something like that.”
Something like that.The other action that was kind of like a workout that called for a shower after . . . Did Beck have some sort of weekly sex arrangement? My cheeks warmed at the picture: Beck sweaty, arms braced on either side of a lover.
I ducked my head, trying to appear very interested in my food. I decided I didn’t want to know what Beck did on Thursdays, and Beck didn’t seem inclined to elaborate. He chewed on a forkful of his biriyani.
His eyes rolled, and he moaned. “Okay,” he said after swallowing. “I get the hype.”
“Right?” I said, trying to enjoy my food more than the sound of Beck’s moan. “Well, I guess this is good. We can knock out this workflow while we eat.”
“Oh no,” Beck shook his head. “I am enjoying this.” He used his fork to point down at his food. “Way too much to let something like work ruin it.”
I laughed, but I understood. Besides, the last three hours of nonstop configuring workflows had fried my brain, so I relented. “Okay. No work.”
“So, when are you going to take that vacation?”
The question threw me off guard. “What?” I asked, mouth still full.
He gestured vaguely to the tropical elements of my cubicle. “The decorations, the canceled vacation with your sister, and then today you were on some website about Maui.”
My cheeks heated. Beck had been listening to me—noticing me. I took a sip of Coke, giving my scarlet cheeks a moment to fade before answering. “I didn’t realize you paid attention to what I Google.”
“Well, you are on company time.”
My lips pressed into a flat line. “It was during lunch.”
Beck shrugged. The ease gradually melted, and the intensity returned. He wanted an answer, and we both knew I was skating around it.
“I don’t know,” I said finally, opting for the truth. “I can’t now, obviously.”
“No, not obviously. Why can’t you take a vacation?”
“Because.” I waved at the computer screen and the workflow as if to say, duh. “Work is crazy. Things are too busy right now.”
“That’s exactly why you need a vacation. The point of a vacation is to escape life when it’s hectic.”
“Wow,” I deadpanned. “How profound. That should be in a fortune cookie. You got any other sage advice for me?”
“Okay,” he said, letting out a small laugh and pushing his food around with his fork. Message received. He looked ready to drop the issue. Then he put the fork down and looked at me with an awfully serious expression for someone who’d said he couldn’t work because he was enjoying his chicken too much. “It’s just—you seem like you need a break.”
I sighed. “Everyone needs a break.” I decided to change the direction of the conversation before either of us could delve too far into my unhealthy work relationship and my need to excel, even if it meant hating every minute of my job. “I’ll get one this weekend. I won’t be working the entire time—can’t.”
“Why not? You got a hot date?” I’m sure he meant the questions to come out as light and playful, but the tightness in his voice was just shy of jovial.
“No.” I squinted, waiting for the reason to hit him. Why he would also be busy. But his expression remained blank. “Your sister’s shower, remember?”
“Oh! That. Yeah, that explains why I’ll be busy this Saturday. But . . . do brides usually invite their calligraphers to their showers?”
“No. Your sister is having me do live lettering as part of the party favors.”
“And that is what exactly?” he asked before taking another bite of his dinner.
“It’s doing calligraphy on site. In this case, she’s having me letter on Capiz shells.” Before he could ask me what the hell those were, I explained, “Little round shells.” I made a circle with my fingers. “Pearly, opaque. Anyway, I’m there to personalize the shells in whatever way the guests request. I’m surprised she didn’t tell you.” I thought of how Beck had taken a day off work to help Victoria with her company. “I got the impression you two are close.”
“We are.” He tilted his head to the side and gave a devastatingly handsome half-smile. “But she, mercifully, leaves me out of most wedding plans.” Then the smile slid off his face and he sat up, straight and stiff. “You are going to be at the shower.” I could all but see a lightbulb above his head. “And are you going to the wedding?”
“The one in Costa Rica?” I scoffed. “No.”
“But you could go.”
My eyebrows scrunched. “Why would I do that?” I took a long sip of Coke, waiting for him to answer.
“Because you can be my date.”
I had to choke down the gulp of Coke to keep it from spraying all over my laptop. “What?” I asked around a coughing fit.
“You said it yourself. Having a date for the shower and wedding would show I’ve moved on.”
“I meant someone else.” I was still coughing up carbonation. “Not me!”
“It wouldn’t be a real date.” He put up his hands. “Just for pretend.”
“Beck—”
“Victoria already thinks we have a history together from that incredibly weird interaction outside her office.” I rolled my eyes, but he continued. “I’ll tell her things rekindled when I dropped the mirror off at your apartment. And now we’re seeing each other.” He laughed as if amused by how naturally the narrative unrolled. “Think about it. It makes sense.”
“None of it makes sense, Beck. Is Victoria going to take kindly to you dating her calligrapher?”
“I don’t think she’ll care as long as things aren’t awkward between her best friend and her brother.”
I folded my arms over my chest as I looked back at all the pieces Beck had given me, sorting them to see where they best fit. “Let me get this straight. You are asking me to fake date you until after the wedding? Because that’s three weeks of acting.”
“No. It would only be for the shower and the wedding. Two evenings, tops. We go back to normal when at the office. It’s just a show for my sister.”
“And your ex. It’s a show for her too. What was her name?” I snapped my fingers as it came to me. “Reagan.”
Beck shrugged. “Sure, whatever you say.”
“I can’t go to Costa Rica.” I dropped the takeout box on my desk, too ruffled to eat another bite.
“Why? Do you not have a passport?” He frowned like I’d shattered his entire plan with a technicality.
But I did have a passport. I’d gone to Mexico with my mom and Hailey after graduation. It was the last vacation I’d taken—if you didn’t count our trip to Waco a couple of years ago, which I didn’t since I’d gotten food poisoning and spent the entirety of the weekend glued to the toilet in our Airbnb.
“No. I have a passport. But I can’t miss work to fly across the world for a wedding.”
“It’s only a three-hour flight, and I’ll pay for it. You could fly out that Saturday morning and be back on Sunday. You wouldn’t even have to miss work since that’s what you are so worried about.”
“What I’m worried about is pretending to be your girlfriend, Beck.” I laughed, a hysterical thing. “It is a terrible idea.”
“Probably.” A grin pulled wide across Beck’s face. “But I think that’s my decision to make since you owe me one.”
My jaw dropped. I knew it. I knew that favor was going to come back to bite me. “Somehow, I feel like fake dating goes beyond that scope. That’s like saying I owe you a kidney because I ate the last pop-tart in the pantry.”
“Oh really, because I think fake dating is the perfect cash-in for going along with your fake identity.”
I did owe him. There was no denying he’d been extra cool by not telling his sister about me. “Fine,” I huffed. When his lips curved in victory, I put up my hand to halt the joy. “But we should set some ground rules.”
He sat back in his chair. “Sure. What did you have in mind?”
“I’ll hold your hand. Quick hugs are fine.” I couldn’t help it. My gaze fell to his full lips. I snapped my eyes back to his. “But kissing is off the table.”
“Rule number one: no kissing.” He pondered something. “What about dancing? I only ask because we are going to a wedding, after all.”
The thought of my body pressed against Beck’s made me dizzy. But I shook that off. It would be sweet wedding music, not ass-shaking club soundtracks. “Dancing is fine, but hands should remain at respectable cotillion-like positions.”
“Fair enough,” he said. “Anything else?”
“I want a separate hotel room for the night of the wedding.”
“Done. We’ll have to be sneaky when we part ways for the night, but it shouldn’t be an issue.”
I was sure we needed more ground rules, but I couldn’t think of anything else. “Fine,” I said, sticking out my hand for him to shake. “I’ll be your fake date for the shower and the wedding.”
Beck leaned in, his hand engulfing mine.
My skin tingled as I shook hands with the enemy.