Page 119 of Faking Cinderella
“I dislike that you’re attractive when you’re baiting me.”
His whole face breaks into a heart-stopping grin that transforms grumpy bodyguard man into a mountain of a snack. “How terrible for you.”
And then he’s swinging himself out of the truck while I’m still grabbing the cloth bag of groceries.
Two breaths.
I give myself two breaths, and then I climb out of the truck too.
He’s right.
It’s showtime.
18
APPLES AND ANXIETY
Rhys
The triplets are goingto blow it.
Every last one of them is so tense that if I flicked them with a fingertip, they’d shatter.
Margie though—and yeah, I’m actively thinking of her as Margie tonight so that I’m not the one who spills the secret—is rocking it.
And not just with helping me peel apples at the island in the small kitchen, where she keeps accidentally brushing her arm against mine or angling her hip against the side of my thigh or grabbing the same apple I’m reaching for.
That part—the part where she keeps touching me—that part is driving me mad.
I want to toss her over my shoulder and take her out to the back seat of my truck and fuck her until we both get this out of our system.
If she’s the firecracker in the sack that I think she is—then I’ll need to work her out of my system several times.
Possibly several times a day. Every day for the next month.
Shit.
Down, boner.Down.
“Lucky was so helpful during my three months of nursing school,” Margie’s telling Mrs. Sullivan, who’s sitting at the high countertop behind the sink on one end of the brightly lit kitchen. “You know how people are. If you say you think something isn’t for you, they’ll try to encourage you and say it gets better and you just need to stick it out a little while longer. But Lucky was the first one to tell me I’d be okay and I’d find my real purpose if nursing wasn’t it. And I needed to hear that. I needed that kind of support.”
Mrs. Sullivan beams at her. “That’s my boy. He’s always been so good at recognizing it’s important to let people be who they are and to respect what they say they need.”
While Margie’s perfectly playing the role of nursing-school-dropout-turned-housekeeper, Decker and Lucky are quietly sniping at each other about potato salad.
Jack’s noped out of the whole thing and is out on the back deck, supposedly manning the corn cobs on the grill and talking to Mr. Sullivan.
No one’s touched the Chex Mix. Not even to open the bag. It’s just sitting there on the counter beside the fridge.
“Are you seeing anyone, Margie?” Mrs. Sullivan asks, her gaze flitting to me and making me very glad the counter is high enough to hide the problem in my pants.
Just barely, but it is.
“I’m working on me solo for a while instead of working on me in relationships,” Margie replies.
Mrs. Sullivan’s gaze slides to her two boys.
Specifically lingering on Lucky, if I’m reading this right.
