Page 23 of Goal Line (Boston Rebels #4)
Once I slide the ring onto his finger, we’re told, “By the power vested in me by the state of Nevada, I now pronounce you man and wife. You may now kiss the bride.”
Luke’s smile is slow and sure, almost like a smirk.
Like he knows exactly how my mind is going crazy and wants to reassure me everything is going to be okay.
Except, when he brings his hands to the sides of my neck, running his thumbs along my jaw and tilting my head back, it dawns on me that everything is not going to be okay.
Because the way he takes my lips tentatively in his, the way he deepens that kiss, sweeping my mouth open with his tongue, and the way my entire body takes over and I kiss him back like it really means something to both of us...I know one thing with startling clarity.
I want my fake husband, and I don’t think I can hide that desire anymore. And that’s the surest way to ruin the trust and the friendship we’ve spent a lifetime building.
“ I think I need to go to sleep,” I say, glancing out the airplane window.
The lights of Vegas are a good twenty minutes behind us, and there’s nothing but darkness below.
On the very edge of the horizon, somewhere far out over the ocean, I can make out the pink tinges of the setting sun along the curved surface of the Earth in another time zone.
But the sky above and the surface below are completely black.
“I thought you were a night owl,” Luke says. He knows me too well.
“Pregnancy makes me tired.” At least that’s not a lie.
“You don’t seem tired. You seem like you’re freaking out again.”
And here I thought I was hiding it well enough. But the way I’m staring out the window as we talk, refusing to look at him sitting beside me...it’s a classic avoidance strategy that I’m sure is more than obvious.
“I just need to go to sleep so I can wake up tomorrow and remember how to...”
“How to?”
“...I don’t know.” I sigh. “How to not be awkward around you.”
“Have I done something that’s made you uncomfortable?” he asks, his voice tinged with worry and regret.
Clearly, he doesn’t realize that his proximity has my skin tingling with awareness, much like it always has.
..but even more than normal. Now we’ve kissed, now that we just got married .
..I can’t stop thinking about the way his lips felt on mine.
The heat that spread through me when I tasted him for the first time hasn’t faded, and I want him more than I ever have.
But that’s not what this marriage is, so I need to get myself under control. When I wake up, maybe I’ll be able to lock these feelings away. Maybe I’ll figure out how to just be his best friend again, as if his kiss didn’t tilt my entire world on its axis.
Yeah, maybe.
“No,” I say, letting out a yawn as I turn toward him, “you haven’t done anything. I think I’m just”—I shake my head, trying to clear my thoughts of the memories of his tongue tangling with mine—“feeling awkward about all this pretending.”
“Evie,” he says, reaching out and slipping his hand behind my neck. Instead of focusing on how possessive his touch feels, I question what it means. Is physical touch his love language? Is that why he’s always so affectionate with his friends? “Are you feeling this way because we kissed?”
“Maybe,” I squeak, sounding unusually high pitched.
I watch as he swallows, the muscles in his neck moving as his jaw clenches.
“I don’t want anything about this to be wrong for you, and I’m sorry if kissing you at the end of the ceremony made you uncomfortable.
But there’s no way anyone will ever believe that we’re married if we can’t even kiss without you reacting like I’m repulsive. ”
My head snaps up, my eyes meeting his intense gaze. “Are you...being serious right now?”
He’s kidding, right?
“I mean, the way you seized up and pulled away when I kissed you, and the way you’re suddenly so uncomfortable around me? Yeah, it feels off. ”
“Luke.” I huff a laugh at how wildly off base his assessment is.
I seized up and pulled back at the end of the kiss because if I didn’t put a stop to it, I was afraid I was going to maul my husband—who’s my best friend and nothing more—right there in the wedding chapel .
“I’m pretty sure you know that women don’t find you repulsive. ”
“Apparently you do.” He shrugs with a lift of his eyebrows, and that’s when I see it. The way he squints just a little, before his face returns to the placid expression he always wears. That little squint? That’s his tell—a sure sign that he’s worried or uncomfortable or upset.
And that’s when it hits me: he’s trying to play this off like he’s teasing, but he actually believes that I don’t find him attractive, and...he’s upset by it?
What the hell is happening?
“Okay, Luke,” I say, feeling like I need to level with him. “I’m pretty sure you know that you’re not the least bit repulsive. And I’m a woman, so obviously I’ve noticed that. But we’re friends, so...”
“So . . .?” he prompts.
I consider telling him things I’ve never told him before. Like how much I wanted him to choose me back in high school, when I thought he was going to ask me to senior prom. There’s never been a question that I am not his type. He goes for tall blondes, usually with fake tans and light eyes.
But somehow, our senior year, I allowed myself to hope that he felt things for me that he clearly didn’t. I mistook his friendship and his affection for something more—just like I did this past winter with Christopher.
It’s a mistake I seem to keep making, even though, ever since senior year of high school, I’ve steeled myself against any hope that there could ever be something between Luke and me.
And I’m not going to misinterpret the fact that he’s married me as anything other than a mutually beneficial agreement between friends.
Even if that kiss felt unmistakably real.
“So even though you’re objectively attractive,” I say, toying with my ring and hating every word about to leave my mouth, “we’re never going there.”
He nods in agreement. “There are few things that would ruin a friendship faster.”
“Exactly. Which is why we can’t kiss like that again, unless absolutely necessary.”
He lifts an eyebrow, and his lips quirk up on one side. “Define absolutely necessary.”
“Are you suggesting...” My eyes narrow as I try to figure out if he’s teasing me, or if he really needs the clarification.
“That we should put some boundaries in place so I don’t make you uncomfortable again? Yes.”
I want to explain that what made me uncomfortable wasn’t the kiss itself. It was how badly I wanted it to be real. But I can’t tell him that because I’m not sure I could handle the same we’re-just-friends-and-this-is-just-an-act conversation I had with Christopher only a few months ago.
I am perfectly capable of reminding myself of this fact.
“Unless there are other people around and we need to convince them that this marriage is real, I think we need to keep our hands off each other.”
He tilts his head to the right as he studies me, and eventually his gaze is too much. Looking at Luke Hartmann is like staring at the sun—beautiful and blinding at the same time. If I don’t look away, I’ll get hurt .
“I guess what I’m trying to figure out,” he says, his voice quiet in the cabin of this small private jet, “is if the way I normally touch you, as a friend, is off limits now? And if so, what changed?”
Alarm bells are going off in my head. I’ve never read too much into or made a big deal out of the way he’s always touched me. It’s just how he is. It would be weird if I suddenly had a problem with it. It would raise questions, like the ones he’s asking right now: what changed ?
What changed is that he just kissed me like no one else ever has. Like he wanted to take his time and savor me. Like he wanted more, but didn’t want to rush things. He kissed me like he cared, like it was a promise of forever.
And that’s the kind of thing that could make a girl hope, when she absolutely shouldn’t.
“Of course that’s fine, Luke,” I say with an exaggerated sigh. “Nothing’s changed. We’re still the same friends we’ve always been.”
And with that lie on my lips, I close my eyes and lean toward him, resting my head on his chest as he wraps his arms around me and I drift off to sleep.