Page 88 of Mess With Me

“Yes?” I wait for him to come to me on the porch. I won’t give him any reason to think this wasn’t his idea. My heart beats wildly in my chest as he walks up the path. He looks so handsome with his bowed head and broad shoulders.

I tilt my face up as he jogs up the steps.

I want Griffin Kelly to kiss me so badly I might just explode. My fingers twitch, wanting to reach for him. But when he gets to me and pauses, he stops a whole foot away from me and hands me something he’s got in his hand instead.

“I thought you should have this.”

I look down. It’s a key, on a plain strap of a key ring.

I have to swallow down my disappointment. “Thanks.”

“You okay?”

I let out a little laugh. “Yeah. I’m fine. I think.”

Gripping it too hard, I try my key out in the door. It slides smoothly open, because of course Griffin Kelly wouldn’t have anything that didn’t work perfectly. He wouldn’t suffer a sticky door lock or a book out of place on a shelf.

He wouldn’t sleep with a woman who’s so lonely she just fake-married a near stranger.

It’s not about being lonely, I remind myself. The threat of Vincent Creelman is very real. But I’d be lying if I didn’t say I love the idea of being married.

The domesticity. The close family. The cozy small town and the cabin I’m brimming with ideas about, ones that’ll probably make Griff’s head pop off.

“You hungry?” Griffin asks inside the door.

“Not at all.”

“Right.”

It’s weird that he’s asking me that. He saw me stuff my face earlier.

I slip off my sandals, setting them carefully on the shoe rack. Then I stand in the foyer a moment, spinning the ring on my finger.

“Well, I guess I’ll go to bed then,” I say when he doesn’t say anything.

“Sasha, I…I don’t really know what I’m doing.”

I laugh, short and too loud. “You think I do?”

He runs a hand over the back of his neck. “I know the wedding night is a big deal when it’s real. But…” He makes a frustrated sound.

Oh God. Now that he’s said it out loud, it feels so awkward. “I know. It’s not real. So don’t worry about it, okay? I’m not going to try to seduce you.”

Griffin looks down, shifting his hand over his jaw. “It’s not that I don’t think you’re…fuck. I just can’t get involved like that. Feelings…they don’t work in this job.”

Now that stings. “So you’ve said.” I know my words sound bitter, but they’re out there, and my feelings are, too. “Since we’re saying what’s on our minds, though, I’ll say it’s funny, because that kiss today—it didn’t feel like a chore. Unless it did to you?”

He gives me a heated look. “No.”

“It didn’t to me either. Because this isn’t a job over on this side. This is my life. I think it’s normal to have some feelings.”

“I’m not saying you shouldn’t have feelings.”

I laugh. It’s a little unhinged sounding. “No, justyoushouldn’t. It’s only me we need to worry about.”

Griffin doesn’t say anything to that. And why should he? It’s crazy. He’s right; this is not about feelings. This is for protection only. But I can’t stop being mad about it. “You know what? Don’t worry about it. Your whole life, you’ve done a great job of tamping down feelings and operating on logic, so why stop now?”

“Sasha—”

---