Page 90 of Faking Cinderella
Yes, she did a decent job, but it’s not like I gave her hard wood to split.
And it’s not like she’s not a girl boss in her real identity.
Fuck.
Now I’m thinking about how I’ve always been a sucker for girl bosses and how I currently have very hard wood.
“But then the moose showed up—” she says, pausing when Lucky’s eyes bug out.
“You saw a moose?”
“He was in the backyard, and?—”
“You saw a moosehere?”
“Called nature, my friend,” I interject.
Yeah. Yeah, that’s good. That sounds normal. I’m getting a grip on myself.
Not the way I need to, but at least mentally.
Lucky looks at me. “I’ve lived here my entire life and I’ve never seen a moose here.”
I shrug. “Maybe you don’t have the moose touch.”
Margot smiles, and I suddenly want to be the asshole.
I want to be the asshole who’s been assuming the worst of her because she’s an heiress lying about her identity, when I should want her to be the asshole so I quit liking her so much for all of the little things I’ve seen her doing for the people here.
Lucky looks between us.
Then looks closer between us, then starts puffing up his chest as he settles on staring at me.
Or, more appropriately, glaring.
Like he’s just noticed me looking at his sister wrong even more than he thought I was last night, when I wasn’t looking at her wrong at all.
And like he’s enjoying having a sister to defend.
As if she needsanyoneto defend her.
Goddammit, why won’t this boner chill the fuck out? Why am I getting harder over the idea that I get to defend my territory?
She’s not my territory.
I just want her to be.
Because you didn’t learn your lesson the last time, dumbass? an intelligent part of my brain finally says.
“So I met this fascinating guy at the retreat center today,” Margot says. She taps Lucky on the hand, getting his attention. “He said that he raises cows back home, and one day he decided to write a children’s book about them as if they’re actually matchmaking grannies setting up other farm animals. Isn’t that adorable?”
Lucky angles another look at me before smiling back at her, suspicion still etched in his expression. “Yeah. That’s cute.”
“I love the retreat center,” she says. “It’s so neat to meet so many different people with so many different stories. You probably get the same thing at the nursing home?”
That fully distracts him.
Lucky launches into story after story about his patients and the things they’ve told him, including a few about his grandfather, who’s not a patient but still a seasoned citizen and also in a committed relationship with Lucky’s cousin’s husband’s grandmother.
