“What? Like a double date.” He stands. “Come on, it’ll be fun.”
Jake stretches a smile and stuffs his hands in his pockets. “Sure,” he says.
“Sure what?” Lane asks, materializing at his side. She touched up her makeup and is holding the cutest sparkling clutch that matches a bedazzled jacket.
I stand next to Noah and tug on his hand, leaning my body against his, feeling his tension. “Babe, next time. It’s their first time going out together.” I can feel him relax against me, andit brings me a tiny little bit of joy. Then I pull out my phone and snap Jake’s picture before anyone has a chance of knowing what’s happening.
“You can never be too safe,” I say with a wink for Lane.
She pulls on Jake’s hand and rolls her eyes at me.
“You kids have fun,” Noah says, and I stifle my laughter. As the door starts closing on them, he adds, “Don’t—” at a high volume, but he doesn’t have time to finish. Whatever he was going to say?Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do. Don’t come back past midnight. Don’t sleep with—scratch that, I sure hope he wouldn’t go there. Point is, anything he was going to say starting withDon’tis a bad idea.
So before I can think about it, I implementmyterrible idea, which is to shut him up with my hand on his mouth right as the door closes, leaving us both alone and way too close.
Time seems to stop as his lips touch the palm of my hand and his glasses slightly fog. I drop my hand as if nothing happened, eyes widening on him. But it’s too late. Heat spreads from my fingertips to my whole body, and I have to step back to keep myself in check.
“I got his picture,” I croak to shift his attention from my inappropriate touching.
“I saw that,” he answers in a perfectly normal voice. As if he hadn’t felt it too. As if the tension in his body, the light flickering in his eyes, his briefly erratic breathing, weren’t a tell of anything. “You’re actually worse than me.”
“I can be sneaky,” I admit, “but only for a good cause.”
“I think we’ve established that already,” he answers, his gaze dropping to my mouth.
nineteen
Noah
Fuck but her lips are tempting.
I take a step back, scolding myself. She was only trying to be a good friend to Lane. Her hand on my mouth didn’t mean anything to her. She wasn’t flirting or taunting me. She didn’t feel anything, not the way I did. She was just laser-focused on protecting Lane, even reminding me about the picture she took.
“I have work to do,” I say, which is an awkward thing to say. It’s not like we’re a real married couple, needing to keep each other in the loop of our nightly activities. I just don’t know how else to tell her that I can’t be in her presence anymore without a serious danger to my sanity.
I was prepared to be forever indebted to this woman for helping our family out. In Vegas, I became aware that she would probably turn into the closest female friend I’d have, one that was off-limits.
But tonight I’m down another infuriating level of intimacy. Tonight, I’ve seen up close her tiny family, the thin threads of belonging she’s trying to pull together to weave her life, and I understand now how our small town is so important to her. For all intents and purposes,weare her family. And this endears her to me in ways she will never understand. It’s as if our DNAs were rooted together by the same primal need for Emerald Creek to always be there.
If that weren’t enough, she has a level of patience and understanding of others that leaves me in awe, while being fun and lighthearted.
To top it off, I’m becoming intimately familiar with the pattern of her breathing, the scent of her skin, the fragrance of her shampoo, the silkiness of her hair, the clarity of her laughter, and the register of her voice, although I still need to figure out why sometimes it comes out breathy and uncertain.
I’m falling in love with my wife.
And there’s nothing I can do about it, because no way in hell am I even going to suggest I feel anything for her.
Because that would be a real dick move.
“Take your time, I won’t be up there for at least a couple of hours,” I add. Since that first morning when she started getting dressed in front of me, we’ve been trying to protect each other’s intimacy in a way that doesn’t raise suspicion from Lane or Beck.
Getting the hint, Willow walks away. “Ladida, dahling,” she sing-songs in her fake British accent, wiggling her hand at me, tripping a bit.
That whiskey sour sure relaxed her.“You gonna be okay getting up the stairs?” I ask, trying not to laugh.
“Yup! Yup-yup-yup.” She disappears up the dark staircase. I listen to make sure she doesn’t need help, then go to my office.
I open my emails and type a message to my lawyer, attaching my marriage certificate and asking for next steps.
