Page 31 of My Pucking Enemy (The Milwaukee Frost #4)

Luca

After the Fine Dining Fair months ago, after the first time I brought Wren back to my place, I woke up to her going through my kitchen drawers.

I’d blinked sleepily against the light as I went to stand in the kitchen, crossing my arms, watching her go through the items.

“Having fun?” I’d asked, and she turned slowly, already aware I was watching her.

“Admit it,” she’d said, closing a drawer and spinning around to face me. “You cleaned before I came over.”

“I just don’t own a lot of stuff,” I’d said. At the time, she was appalled that I’d already taken down my Christmas tree. That’s when I had to tell her that I’d never actually put one up.

Now, she sets a defiant, sparkling green leprechaun’s hat on the mantle above the fireplace, crossing her arms and turning to me with a single raised eyebrow. It’s the only piece of color in the entire room.

Her hair is shorter now, just brushing the tops of her shoulders. She came to work one day looking like that—having chopped off several inches—and I couldn’t take my eyes off her. Finally, she’d snapped that it was her hair, and she’d do what she wanted with it.

I’d pulled her into me and kissed her hard, shivering when I touched my fingers to the tips of it. The truth is that everything looks good on her, and the shock of the difference was more of a turn-on than any specific hairstyle could be.

“See,” she says, gesturing now to the green hat. “You can decorate for the holidays. It looks nice.”

I bark out a laugh. It looks ridiculous, and my hands itch to grab it and put it away. I’m not sure it even qualifies as a decoration. “Wren, it’s a single green hat. I’d hardly call that decorating.”

“You’re right,” she says, turning back to it, a satisfied look on her face. “You need more. Maybe we could get some garland, and I could find some old Guinness bottles—”

I open my mouth to argue with her, or maybe just to admit defeat, but a ding goes off in the kitchen and I abandon the site of the decorations to make sure I pull the roast from the oven before it dries out.

Wren sidles in behind me, reaching for the glass of sparkling water she left on the counter before.

It’s domestic. I’m smart enough to evaluate the situation and know that Wren and I are moving past playacting at this thing.

When she’s gone, I miss her. On the nights that she goes to her apartment instead of coming here, I feel like a toddler wanting to throw a fit.

Or a kid coming home to a house devoid of parents.

When she’s not here, something is clearly missing.

Every time things start to feel too real, I run through the list of reasons for why this just makes sense. She doesn’t like to cook, and I always make too much food. Her being here helps us to keep up appearances. It’s likely contributed to nobody suspecting us of faking.

Wren being at my place every night is just logical.

“What did your mom want, earlier?” Wren asks when we sit down at the table together. I pour her a glass of wine, lean back, and think about the conversation.

“She was asking about your favorite candy,” I say, flicking my eyes up to hers briefly before picking up my fork and knife and cutting into the roast. It’s perfect, and I can see with Wren’s first bite that she thinks so, too.

“…Why?” she asks.

I shrug. “She hates fighting with other people for Easter candy. She’s probably already placing orders to get it now.”

When Wren says nothing for a beat too long, I pause, glancing at her again and finding a strange expression on her face. The same expression I saw flickering there throughout Christmas—Sloane’s baby shower.

We’re adults. We should just be able to confront this growing thing between us, the fact that it’s getting real. When I was a kid, my mom used to say, “Don’t make that face, it’ll get stuck like that.”

That’s what happening to us now. After holding this position for so long—pretending to be in a relationship—we’ve started to get stuck that way. Started to actually grow around each other like two roots entangling together.

“What?” I prompt, even though I feel like I shouldn’t push it. It feels like the only reason this thing has lasted this long is me and Wren avoiding looking right at it. Skirting around it. pretending like we still need to keep up pretenses.

“It’s just—” She pauses, clears her throat, then sits up to look me in the eye. I get the feeling that this is about to be an important moment. That I’ll look back and remember what she says right now for a long, long time.

“My grandmother gave me her wedding dress,” she says.

“Gran…gave you her wedding dress?” I ask, trying to speak around the slightly choked feeling in my throat. “Why?”

Wren’s gaze doesn’t leave me. “She wants me to wear it when I get married.”

That settles between us, and something strange happens in my chest. Heart beating hard and loud, something like an adrenaline rush I’d get on the ice, but firmer. Fuller.

Wren goes on, pushing her fork around her plate, “She’s worried she might not be here when I get married. So she wanted to give it to me now. In case I decide to get married in the future.”

I open my mouth, close it again.

It would be stupid to ask this woman to marry me right now. Objectively, I know that. We’ve only been—fake—dating for four months. I’ve only known her since the start of this hockey season.

Mandy and I courted for weeks before deciding to sign that contract together.

Yeah, a voice in my head supplies, and look how that turned out.

Finally, I manage to get my mouth to say something. “Will you?”

Wren shrugs and glances out the window. “Not sure I would make a great wife, Luca.”

“You would.”

Her eyes snap back to mine, and she holds the contact. The room grows heavy around us. How long can we keep doing this? It’s like there are two sides of my brain at once—the one that insists this thing is fake… and the one that knows the way that I feel about Wren Beaumont.

Like she’s a regular part of my life now. Like she’s a fixture that’s always been here, and would be impossible to live without. I want to wake up next to her every morning, and watch her brush her teeth with ferocity every night.

If that’s not the primary objective of marriage, then I don’t know what is.

But I can’t just tell her that. As strong as she likes to act—and as strong as she is—Wren is flighty. I’ve seen it in conversation time and time again, when we approach the subject of her father, her past.

She doles out the tiniest pieces of information, like she’s afraid I might not be able to handle too much at once. Like she needs to portion herself to be palatable.

“Yeah,” Wren laughs, rolling her eyes and picking up her wine glass. “Right.”

“Wren.” I put my fork down and cross my arms, a deep breath inflating my chest. I’m not going to do something like propose to her, but I can’t sit with her thinking she wouldn’t fit as one half of a partnership.

“You’re loyal, brilliant, intelligent, funny, beautiful.

In what world would you not make a good wife? ”

She scoffs, and rolls her eyes, grinning and turning her hand in a go on motion. Making it into a joke, like I knew she would. “Say more.”

“I will,” I sit forward, needing this to be serious for once, catching her gaze and not letting it go, even when she looks like a deer in the headlights—like I can hear her heart skipping frantically in her chest. “The past few months have been the happiest of my life. Maybe you’re challenging, Wren, and maybe there are some people who can’t handle that, but I’m on the team that believes a challenge is a good thing.

That sometimes it’s worth working for the thing you want. ”

Her lips part, and she stares at me almost wildly. The expression on her face is equal parts curiosity and trepidation.

But the trepidation wins out, because she breaks the eye contact and pushes back from the table, her chair scraping over the floor.

“Excuse me,” she says, grabbing her napkin and standing. But instead of heading for the door, she turns and walks down the hallway, toward my room.

Our room.

The room we’ve been sharing for months now.

Before I really know what I’m doing, I get to my feet and follow her, walking in through the open door and standing just inside the threshold to stare at her back, watching her shoulders rise and fall steadily.

I should pull back. Like I did on the train that day.

I shouldn’t push this any harder, ask Wren for more vulnerability than she’s willing to give me.

But, for some reason, this feels different.

This feels not like a standoff between me and Wren, but my opportunity to go up against the nebulous other thing—whatever it is, keeping her from thinking she deserves for someone to love her.

As though I haven’t already said enough, as though every word out of my lips to her right now wasn’t just a clear indication that I’m the man who wants her challenge… I speak again.

“I think you’d make a great wife, Wren. And I don’t want you marrying anyone else.”

It’s not a proposal. It’s not even anything close to making it clear what’s going on between us—which we desperately need to do.

But it’s enough, because she’s already turning around when I step to her.

And when we come together, it’s not a crashing or an igniting like when we come home from work or when she slides her hand over to me during a movie.

There’s nothing fast about this. Nothing rushed.

I lay her back on the bed and bracket myself over her the way I want to cover her in life. Shield her from anything that would hurt her.

And I will. If only she’ll let me in.