Total pages in book: 92
Estimated words: 89503 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 448(@200wpm)___ 358(@250wpm)___ 298(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 89503 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 448(@200wpm)___ 358(@250wpm)___ 298(@300wpm)
“Shoop!” we all yell, laughing so hard that we sound like a herd of cows mooing. “Shoop!”
He stumbles to the DJ booth, glassy-eyed, thanks to Drake, and takes the microphone. Squinting, he searches the crowd until he finds Mira standing beside me. “I’m only doing this because my wife asked.”
“Love you, Hart!” she shouts.
“I love you.” He turns to the DJ. “Let’s do this. I want to shoop, baby.”
The notes of the song begin to play, Hartley starts moving his hips, and I die. I’ve seen him do this once before at a bonfire at the ranch, which was apparently his second performance, and my sides ached from laughing for two days afterward.
The crowd cheers him on as I slip out of the throng of people.
My gaze immediately finds Jory. As he reaches for a bottle of water from an ice bucket next to the cake table, I can’t help but notice how he’s so unruffled by the chaos, so calm and controlled. So handsome. The eye of the storm in so many ways for me.
He looks over his shoulder and catches me staring.
He lifts a brow and makes his way to me with a smirk that makes me weak.
“Hey,” I say, touching the side of his face, unable to go any longer without physical contact.
“You need water, babe.” He presses the bottle of water into my hand and takes the mostly empty champagne glass from me, placing it on a table. “Drink.”
“I’m fine.”
“Drink.” His lips press together. “You’re gonna get dehydrated if you don’t get some water in you.” His gaze drops to my chest. “Fuck, I want to get you out of that dress so damn bad.”
I lift and press a sweet but firm kiss to his mouth. “I can make that happen.”
“Want to climb in the back seat of my car for a quickie?”
“No.” I smack his chest, laughing. “I mean, yeah, but …”
“Drink.” He takes the cap off the bottle and waits until I swallow a mouthful of water. “Are you having fun?”
I take another drink of the cool liquid. I didn’t realize how thirsty I was. “I am. What about you?”
“I’ve had a good time, actually. You have some pretty great friends.”
“They are pretty great.” I’m glad he likes them. It would be so weird and disastrous if he didn’t.
“I just heard from Gus. He’s staying with Josh at their friend Brandon’s house, and apparently, Brandon’s dad has a pinball machine. Gus has the highest score on the board.”
Why am I not surprised a bit that he’s competitive? “That’s so not surprising.”
“Not even a little,” he says, chuckling.
Hartley winds up his performance with a bow and a declaration that his karaoke career is finished.
“Can we get all couples on the dance floor?” the DJ asks.
I look up at Jory. He grins.
I’m not sure what his reaction means, or what the knot in my stomach’s telling me, but I have no idea if we qualify to be on the dance floor.
Sure, we’re fake dating. But standing next to him with his eyes on me like this, that label feels inadequate. I don’t know what we are anymore, but it doesn’t feel like we’re only playing pretend.
“Couples,” the DJ repeats. “If you’re a couple, please find your way to the dance floor.”
“Come on,” he says softly.
“Really?”
He takes my hand and slowly leads me back out onto the floor, and the entire room disappears. As the first notes of Keith Whitley’s “When You Say Nothing At All” play through the air, Jory pulls me against him with a look of such affection that it makes my breath stutter.
My heart swells as a peace, a brilliant stillness, settles through me.
His arms wrap around me, holding me tight, as we move to the music. My eyes flutter closed as I melt into his arms, the only place I’ve been able to breathe in a long time. Because when I’m with him, I’m not on edge. I’m not fighting for the next thing. I don’t have to keep my guard up, firmly in place, so I don’t get chopped down when I’m not looking.
There’s no competition, no proving myself—I don’t have to explain anything.
And, my goodness, what a relief this has been.
No other relationship, fake or not, has been like this. So easy and gentle, but fierce and solid at the same time. It’s too bad that this can’t be real. That it can’t always be this way.
I look up into his flecks of jade and swear I see the same thoughts rolling through his mind. Maybe it’s wishful thinking, and it probably is, but the moment of hope it gives me that maybe things will work out for us is the first taste of hope I’ve had in a really long time.
“Are you okay?” he asks, searching my eyes.
“Of course. Why do you ask?”