Page 137 of Wild Then Wed
Well,heel, singular.
She’s standing near the edge of the balcony, one shoe already abandoned by the planter, the other still on her foot and giving her hell. She’s got the wineglass clutched in one hand, the other yanking at the strap on her ankle.
“Comeon,” she hisses, the strap tangled around her fingers. “You stupid, overpriced little shit.”
The strap finally pops open and she yanks the heel off with a small, triumphant grunt. Then she winds up and launches it across the deck. It lands next to the first, both of them lying there like a pair of casualties.
She pauses, lifts her wineglass with one hand, and casually flips them off with the other.
I don’t mean to laugh. It just happens—deep, involuntary.
She startles and spins around. Her eyes find mine in the dark, and for a second, I think she’s deciding whether to throw the wineglass too.
“You’re sneaky,” she says, like it’s a personality flaw.
“You’re loud,” I counter, nodding toward the heels. “I heard a struggle.”
She lifts her glass. “They lost.”
“I can see that.”
She leans forward on the railing, elbows propped, half of her lipstick worn off. Her hair’s down—long and wild and a little wind-blown. Messy in a good way. It shifts across her back in waves, falling down her spine in a way I try not to look at too long.
The way she’s standing doesn’t help, with one hip popped out and that slit in her dress riding too high, putting an obscene amount of leg on display.
And of course I look. Because I’m human. And because I have absolutely no idea where the hell I’m supposed to look instead. I swallow and redirect my eyes to the string lights overhead. Then the ground.
She sets her own glass down and starts tugging at the top of her dress, adjusting it around her chest like she’s in the privacy of her own bathroom and not on a balcony where her very recent fake husband can see everything.
“God, this thing,” she mutters, pulling the fabric up, then down, then up again. “You’d think I actually had boobs the way it fits.”
Not where I thought this was going. “I’m sorry?”
“They’re small,” she says, lifting her hands to gesture toward herself. “I have tiny boobs. Like, baby squirrel-sized. Usually I can’t get anything to stay up. I used to safety-pin my dresses to my bra in high school.”
I blink.
“Now suddenly I put this thing on and boom—it looks like I’m smuggling cantaloupes or something. It’s suspicious, is all I’m saying.”
I nod slowly, taking in the sight of her—barefoot, flushed, a little unfiltered. I don’t think she’s drunk, but definitely buzzed enough to have this entire conversation without batting an eye.
She turns and looks at me fully, like she just remembered I was there. “What do you think?”
“About your…? You’re asking for feedback on your boobs?”
She tips her head. “Objectively. Not emotionally.”
I press my lips together to keep from laughing. I fail. A short, dry breath escapes.
“Objectively?”
She nods, serious. “Be honest, Sawyer. You’re a man with working eyes. So give it to me straight, Doc.”
I clear my throat, try to school my face into something resembling polite analysis.
“They’re…they’re definitely doing pretty impressive work tonight,” I say. “Carrying the team. Really giving it their all.”
And they are.
