Page 113 of Tangled Like Us

Maximoff and I rarely used to close down places, but lately, it’s been more necessary. Right now, over a hundred excitable teenagers are outside the glassed entrance, screaming our names and banging on the windows.

If I do say so, I prefer this crowd to what the Cinderella ad initially roused.

Maximoff and I browse a rack of steampunk costumes, and our bodyguards are in sight but out of earshot, standing at the locked glassed entrance and ensuring no one breaches.

Just until the temp bodyguards, the ones trailing us in the Range Rovers, arrive here. When the temps take over door-duty, Thatcher and Farrow will flank our sides once again.

It’s very systematic.

Which provides a great deal of calmness to my life.

I can’t bite my tongue. “Thatcher called mehoney,” I confess in a whisper to Maximoff. It is a small, innocent confession, seeing as how the much greater one is under lock and key.

That Thatcher spends the night fucking me.

Maximoff’s brows furrow. “In what way did he say it?”

I push aside a few leather corsets. “Caringly, and like it was the most natural thing in the world.” I feel oddly giddy; my lungs might as well be inflated with helium, levitating inside my chest.

He scrutinizes me. “I’ve never seen you like a guy this much.”

I send him a furtive look. “It’s just physical attraction.”

Maximoff gestures towards our bodyguards while he speaks. “Gawking at Thatcher, who looks like a six-foot-seven version of Jon Snow after he killed White Walkers and made friends with wildlings—that’s physical attraction. Liking when a guy calls youhoneyis…” He scrunches his face. “I don’t know what it is, but it’s notphysical.”

“It’s verbal,” I point out. “Verbal communication comes from the tongue, which is in fact a physical appendage.”

He blinks and then stares off. “Tu as peut-être raison.”Maybe you’re right.

I smile. “Thatcher is also…” I catch myself before I blurt out,Thatcher is also good with his tongue in more physical ways.

I want to express how Thatcher’s otherworldly talents in bed are by far the best I’ve had between my legs. But roping Maximoff into this secret will complicate his life when he just uncomplicated it.

Sheltering these moments in my life from Moffy is so difficult. I have a giant urge to gush forth what’s happening. Just like he told me all about his first time sleeping with Farrow.

There are so few people I trust in the world, and since we learned to talk, Maximoff and I shared everything.

“Thatcher is also what?” Maximoff picks out a spiked brown leather jacket.

I try to recover. “He’s also exceptionally sweet.”

“Jesus, that is nowherenearphysical attraction.” He motions to me. “You’re supposed to be light-years smarter than me.” He gives me a look like I’m acting strange.

I’m sweating beneath my pale yellow faux-fur vest. I try to smile, but it feels a little forced.

Maximoff can tell. “Everything okay?” He sets the leather jacket back and focuses on me.

“Fake dating is just complex, but not in a bad way.” I smile in thought. “It’s more stimulating, actually.”

Stimulating.Really, Jane? I suppose I could’ve chosen a more sexual word. At least I didn’t sayerotic. I tie my wavy hair back into a low pony, my neck flushed.

Maximoff is in deeper thought, and he cracks a few knuckles.

I pull back my shoulders.Confidence.I can survive tiptoeing around this secret. “And I’d rather talk about you, old chap.”

He’s about to speak, but Thatcher and Farrow approach us as temp guards claim their positions.

Teenagers shriek outside the windows as our 24/7 bodyguards walk over to us. Cellphones braced at the glass, along with paparazzi’s professional cameras. Everyone takes such keen interest in Thatcher and Farrow, who do their best to ignore the extra attention.