Page 67 of A Storybook Wedding

“I’d say so. I mean, if it hadn’t been for this turn of events, I’d still be living in squalor with Gurt and you’d be…well, you’d be fired.”

“Accurate.”

“I would miss you if you weren’t here.”

His mouth turns up at the corners. “Is that so?”

“Shut up, Pen. Don’t be all weird. You know I would.”

Nate goes still for a moment. “I have a confession,” he says, and my stomach stirs. I try not to stare too hard.

“Well, out with it. Wait. You’re not, like, married to someone else too, are you?”

He smiles. “No. Nothing like that.”

“Okay, then go ahead.”

“It’s kind of embarrassing.”

“Please. It’s us. This is your fake wife you’re talking to, not some real wife who nags you all the time. What is it?”

“Today I realized that I think the manuscript I’m working on is loosely based on you.”

My heart stops; I’m sure of it. This is the first stage of a cardiac arrest episode that will define all moments that follow. Only, wait. No. I’m okay. I can still breathe. Barely. “Um. I’m not sure how to respond to that,” I say, one hundred percent blushing.

“Well, I just thought you should know since I think I’m going to read from it tomorrow.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Tomorrow night, I’m the faculty reader. And then we can go to your New Year’s Eve party.”

“Okay, so hold on. Back up. What exactly is this new book about?” I ask. Then I laugh to myself. “It’s not porn, is it?”

Nate’s face becomes animated. “You’d like that, would you? I believe the genre you’re referring to is called erotica, thank you very much. And no, all of the lurid thoughts I have I’m gentlemanly enough to keep locked up in my brain.”

“Wow. I think the lady doth protest too much,” I giggle. “Now I’m sure it’s porn.”

“Wrong you are. And now, because you’re out here questioning my character, I will not tell you about the story. You’ll just have to hear it for yourself and be surprised like the rest of the student body.”

“I’m your muse,” I joke.

“You’re a pain in my ass is what you are.”

It takes all the strength I have not to throw myself on top of him and pin him to the bed.

Not that I want to, of course. I mean, we’re just friends.

Right?

CHAPTER 12

Nate

Another day of workshops. Another night of painful blue balls.

To be fair, I’m actually starting not to notice the blue balls so much. They’re becoming part of me. Like when a woman gives birth and her stomach changes—and it never quite goes back to what it was before because the muscles tear and stretch. Like that.

Only it’s my nut sack.

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