Page 48 of The Arrangement

“I just can’t decide what to get. I’m torn,” I admitted.

He rolled his eyes. “Honey, we can come back.”

My heart plain stopped beating. And even though it hurt like hell, I wasn’t sure I wanted it to start again. Because right now, in this moment between beats, Marc had called me “Honey” like he meant it, like it was something he’d done a thousand times and would do a thousand times more and a thousand times more after that. In this moment there was a life together, a life filled with laughter and love and flowers, so many flowers. In this moment was the future. In this moment was forever.

Except.

Southerners called perfect strangers “honey.” It wasn’t an endearment; it was a sweetened placeholder for a name. It didn’tmeananything.

“JD?”

“Huh?” I shook my head, and my heart resumed beating, though the pain stayed.

He gave me a soft smile. “You said you were torn. What things were you torn between?”

“Oh. The, uh, Shepherd’s pie and the fish and chips.”

He took my menu and snapped the two together, tilting back to hand them to the waitress. “There you go. That’s what we’ll have.”

“You got it, sugar.” The woman walked away to put in the order and I looked at Marc.

“I might be a giant, but I can’t actually eat all of that.”

“Be pretty rude if you did, since I was planning on eating half of each.” He gave me one of his beaming smiles before taking a drink, and the pain that had followed me from my zone-out eased. Oh.Oh.

“But what about what you were going to order?”

“I never really came here. Beer is beer, and while the live music is usually on point.” He shrugged in lieu of finishing. “I’m mostly hoping it doesn’t disappoint.”

It was really hard to tell with the dim lighting in this place, even with what was coming in from the windows, but it looked like Marc was blushing. He was worried I wouldn’t like the food because he hadn’t properly vetted the place? Not even that. It sounded like this was a place he rarely, if ever, patronized. But he was here—with me—because hethoughtI might like it.

If I thought I could get away with it, I’d have launched over the table and kissed him within an inch of his life. But there was no chance of that, so I settled for something way less elaborate. I nudged his foot under the table and waited for him to meet my gaze. “Guess we’ll have to be the judges then, won’t we? Who knows, maybe it’ll have to be added to the rotation.”

The tentative smile he gave me was, fuck, it was everything. But then he went and slid his foot up my leg and set my blood on fire. And goddamn him, it was going to be miserable as hell sitting through lunch with a semi. Knowing damn well what he’d done, then the fucker went and winked. I didn’t want to hear another word out of his damn mouth about how he was shit at flirting. From where I was sitting, he was rocking expert level, and I would know.

Chapter 25

Marc

Ibolted out of bed, my mind already a frantic buzz of excitement for the day ahead.

The flowers arrive today.

The flowers arrive today.

The flowers arrive today.

As I hopped around the room getting dressed like a demented fool, I went through my mental lists of things that needed to be done in preparation of the delivery. I was so freaking excited to show JD what I could do. He knew I knew about flowers, but he didn't know what I could dowithflowers. This was going to be such a fucking amazing day.

I opened the bedroom door and froze when I saw JD standing shirtless in the kitchen in his microscopic running shorts, holding two coffee mugs.

“I’m guessing this is for me?” he asked with a chuckle, holding up one of those neat pottery coffee cups where only part of it isfinished, with “Orange Beach” etched into it. “Thanks.” He gave me a grin, then turned back to making the coffee.

Shit. I’d forgotten I put that there for him yesterday, which was only a problem because I’d found a better one I wanted to get. One with delicate paintings of honeysuckles in varying shades of white, soft-yellow, and light pink with twirling vines of green holding them together. Which brought me to the horrible reminder that I’d nearly called him “Honeysuckle” at McSharry’s. Even clipping it off at “Honey,” it had landed like a record-scratch given how he’d gone stiller than if he’d just stepped on a landmine.

“Yeah, um, I hope that’s okay,” I said, accepting my cup from him. I took a sip of the dark nectar. Perfectly made, as always.

I could see the smile in his eyes over the blue-glazed rim of his cup before he lowered it to reveal the one tugging at his lips. “Of course, baby boy.” He ran his eyes over me, and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to preen, blush, or strip. “I take it we’re not running this morning?” he asked with a frown.