My Fake Husband by Black, L. (lightest ebook reader .TXT) 📗

I laughed, “She does have everything really organized there. Seriously, she puts everything in those plastic containers and then makes cutesy labels with her Cricut so it’s easy to find.”

“Damon, box 1, head and torso,” Trixie said, and laughed. It was so good to hear her laugh. Even if she was, oddly enough, laughing about my hypothetical dismemberment.

“You have a dark sense of humor,” I said.

“You have no idea,” Michelle put in. “She’s hilarious, but then you wonder if maybe she’s plotting your death, too.”

“I’m not plotting your death,” Trixie said balefully. “I’m way smarter than that. I’d never make it so obvious or joke around about stuff like that. Give me a little credit. I mean, if I was a suspect, nobody would hire me to do the funeral flowers, so that’s just bad for business.”

I whooped at that, and ate another slice of pizza. We had another round of drinks and then played some darts. Nicole kicked everyone’s ass at darts like it was nothing, and we all groaned and gave her hell about it. I realized about halfway through the evening what a good time I was having, how sitting with the girls had made unwinding with a beer a lot better than if I’d just stayed with those two knuckleheads from work. If it was painful to be this close to Trixie, to want her so much, to feel the simmering, low-level attraction I’d felt for years turn into a supernova in one night, it was worth it to make her smile and laugh when she had been so down.

5 Trixie

I probably ate half a pizza, and I didn’t even care. A screwdriver and then some lemonade later, I felt better. Not that I had any new options, but I no longer felt like everything was horrible. After the fun of seeing Nicole beat all the guys at darts because they had no idea she was a badass, I sat down and picked the cheese off another piece of pizza. Zack and Cody or Drake and Josh or whatever the hell the firemen’s names were—something that sounded like it came off an old Disney channel show—left. When I got back from the bathroom, Nicole and Michelle had offered to wait for me, but I’d waved them off so they took off as well. I surveyed the damage and sat back down to finish my lemonade. I’d had one drink about three hours and half a pizza ago, so I was sober. I didn’t need a ride and didn’t need to hurry. It wasn’t like I had a shop to open in the morning. If I felt a little glum about being deserted at the bar, it only fit in with everything else going on.

Then Damon came and sat next to me again. “Where’d they all go? Have we been ditched?”

“Looks like it,” I said, sipping my lemonade.

“You want a drink?”

“I’ve got one.”

“A real one?”

I shook my head.

I was losing the power of speech because he was too close to me. Take me home. Put your mouth on mine, take my clothes off, make me forget everything that’s making me miserable right now. Give me one night. I won’t tell anyone. I don’t care if that makes me just another girl who threw herself at you. You’ll forget, but I won’t. I felt craven, hungry for him.

“Hey, you look like you’re feeling down again,” he said.

He touched my chin with one finger, tipped my head up so I met his eyes. Those wild, aquamarine eyes that seemed like something a gorgeous vampire in a movie would have, a hypnotic, beautiful blue-green gaze.

“Your eyes are insane,” I said. “I’m not even drunk, I just always thought so.”

“Is that a compliment? Is insane a good thing?”

“Definitely,” I confirmed, nodding emphatically, “your eyes are definitely insane in the good way.”

“Thank you. Since we’re saying what we’ve always thought, I love your hair.”

“What?”

“It’s glossy and dark. I like when it’s down over your shoulders,” he said. Then he reached out and lifted my hair, pushed it behind my shoulder and ran his hand down it. What were we doing? Was this the next stage of flirting? The part where it felt like I was going to hyperventilate because he gave me a compliment and touched my hair?

I felt the weight of his gaze, the yearning for more of his touch as he gently ran the tip of his finger down the side of my neck. I could feel the ghost of his touch like it had left a path on my skin, blazed a trail that would show in the mirror if I looked. I knew my cheeks would be stained red from it anyhow. My whole body felt alight and consumed by heat from the way he looked at me. Being the focus of his attention was dizzying, and I wasn’t sure I didn’t want to hide after all. Maybe it was easier not to be noticed, to be the awkward one he didn’t pay attention to.

This was nothing. He touched my neck. His fingers barely skated along my skin before the whisper of a touch was gone. My face flamed, and I had to look away.

“Thanks for sitting with us tonight. It helped take my mind off things,” I said.

“Still feeling down?” he asked, concern in his voice.

I lifted one shoulder in a half-hearted shrug, “I’m okay.”

“Listen, what are your options?”

“Um, let’s see… I can magically motivate my landlord to repair the thousands of dollars of plumbing damage and then have the place professionally cleaned and get my insurance to replace the ruined cooler and take a loss on the flowers I had in stock and on order. Or I can hope to score the jackpot on a scratch-off lotto ticket and buy my building. I mean, that was my goal—buying it, not playing the lottery. I’ve got a little saved, but not much. I can’t get a loan at