Page 23 of Maid of Dishonor
Doing my bestnotto look like I’m about to hyperventilate, I hold the now-open bag of chocolate chips to him. “Want some?” I say.
“I’m good,” he murmurs, his eyes boring into me.
The moment is tense—undeniably charged with something that I can’t identify. I can’t even tell if it’s a good tension or a bad tension; I know Carter better than I know myself, but his face is completely expressionless right now.
Right. Moving on, before this gets too weird.
So I just shrug. “Suit yourself. You’re missing out, though.”
He just grins, shaking his head slowly and looking back to the screen. “You have a problem.”
It doesn’t escape my notice that while he doesn’t move his hand from where it rests over my feet, his thumb does cease rubbing its little circles over my ankle bone.
Which isn’t super encouraging. But Rome wasn’t built in a day, I guess. I’ll take it as a win that he took a nice, long look at my legs and didn’t shove them off his lap.
Baby steps. Itty bitty baby steps.
“So,” I say, popping a few chocolate chips into my mouth. “Are you ready to hear your plans for tomorrow?”
He looks over quickly. “Myplans for tomorrow? Orourplans for tomorrow?”
“Ours,” I say, waving one hand. “You know what I mean.”
He gives a snort of skeptical laughter. “Hardly. Do you remember that time you arranged for me to do that scavenger hunt—”
“I wanted to do something nice for you—”
“And it took mefour hours.”
“I remember,” I say, feeling sheepish.
We were in college, and he’d had a crappy week. So I’d set up a scavenger hunt that would eventually lead him to an envelope with two tickets to a Cardinals game. I’d just wanted to make him happy, but admittedly…I should have made sure his schedule was open. He almost missed an exam review because the scavenger hunt had him driving like thirty minutes away.
“The tickets were great, though,” he says, a far-away look in his eyes. When his gaze comes back to me, his cheeks redden as he adds, “Youwere great. That was—yeah. That was cool of you.”
My heart pounds, but I just say, “Look at you, all lost for words.” My voice is teasing and light, thank goodness, rather than affected by my skittering pulse.
“Shut up,” he says, but I can see him trying to fight a smile. “And moving on. What are these plans we have tomorrow?”
Oh; right. I almost forgot we were going to talk about that. I grab the remote and mute the game; Carter’s frown tells me he doesn’t appreciate it, but he’ll get over it.
“We’re going to look at wedding venues,” I say brightly. “Two of them. That’s one of the things Maya said she can’t do herself. I figured she probably didn’t want to spend a lot on this, so I did some research and found one that was relatively inexpensive and then one that—well, one that just looks pretty,” I admit. I refrain from telling him that the less expensive one is the one I’m really the most excited to see, due to its claim of having themed rooms. The reviews were delightful in the worst way. “You know we have to do this,” I go on when Carter gives me a look full of wrinkle-nosed distaste.
“There’s not going to be a wedding,” he says, scrubbing one hand over his face.
“Maybe, maybe not,” I agree. “But it’s not going to hurt to go look. Plus…” I hesitate, biting my lip, then shrug. “I told her I’d help out. I don’t want to have lied to her.”
“All right,” he says, sighing. “Wedding venues. Fine. But after that, you’re coming with me to talk to Maya and tell her what happened with Chet—”
“Chad.”
“—When we were at Joey’s. I need to take her a few boxes of tea I picked up anyway. Peppermint and chamomile and…” He trails off, frowning and leaning back further into the couch cushions. “Something else. I don’t remember. I looked up things that helped with nausea.”
“Fine,” I say, very admirably not turning into a pile of mush at the fact that he thought to research types of tea that could help with morning sickness. “Deal.” I can agree to at least telling her the truth about what Chad did.
He nods, then gestures wordlessly at the TV. I nod, and once I toss the remote to him, he turns the sound back on. We watch for a bit longer, chatting about the game.
When the next round of commercials comes on, Carter waves one hand at me. “Oh, close your eyes, close your eyes,” he says quickly. “It’s the charity commercial. The one—”
