Page 59 of The Fantasy League
I just beat her to the punch before she got the chance.
“How do you think your mess got cleaned up so quickly, huh?” A smirk pulled at my lips and I watched the horror of my confession run across her face. Granted, I paid a cleaning company quadruple their normal rateplusa generous tip for after-hours service to make that happen, but still.
“I’ve been waiting to see how long it would take for you to confess. Only took you two months and eighteen days.” My arm still around her shoulder, I pulled her close and placed a quick kiss on her temple before whispering in her ear. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but the gray sweatpants are your favorite, yeah?”
Scarlett curled into my side and hid her face from me. “This is mortifying.” Her voice was muffled against my shirt.
“Just wait until I tell you about all those times I heard you muttering ‘asshole’ under your breath when you thought I couldn’t hear you…”
Yeah, I knew about those too.
“You heard those?” Scarlett exclaimed before making an attempt to flee. She didn’t make it but a few inches before I circled my arms around her waist and pulled her back to me.
She seriously needed to stop trying to outrun me because she was never going to succeed.
“Yeah, Abel Asshole Abbott was a funny one though. I’ll give you that.”
“Oh my god, why didn’t you fire me?”
“I had my reasons.” I winked down at her when she popped her head up to look at me. “And you made a mean seared salmon that one time. Couldn’t give you up after that.”
She nuzzled into my side to hide her face abashedly once again. She had no idea how fucking cute she looked when she was embarrassed.
Fuck, it felt good having her close to me again. Being able to touch her and feel as she glued herself to me without hesitating.
Fuck, I missed her.
It was then that I knew I was done sitting on the sidelines and pretending that all I wanted was her “friendship.” Because the next time I went a few days without seeing her or giving her a forehead kiss wasn’t going to cut it.
I was going to need the real thing.
Right then, all my efforts to remain shy about my feelings for her completely dissolved.
Nothing that had gone on between us had been part of the agreement for me. Not even for a second. But I was done playing it off as a part of our “fake relationship.” Done subjecting myself to the torture of keeping her at arm’s length for the sake of our “friendship” like I had been.
She was mine.
And it was only a matter of time until she realized it too.
SIXTEEN
SCARLETT
At what pointwas someone supposed to tell their boss that theysorta kinda maybewanted to be more than friends with them? And that they no longer wanted their fake relationship to be… well, fake.
Unfortunately for me, I had no freaking idea.
Last night after Abel and I drove around Malibu for a while, we grabbed dinner at a local restaurant by the pier where we caught each other up to speed on all the uneventful things we’d been doing the past two weeks without each other.
He was relieved to know that I hadn’t gone on any dates with guys named John.
You’re mine, you know that?
Every word I said was the truth, Red.
Please don’t start shutting me out again, Scarlett.
I’m going to kiss you now… unless you tell me to stop.
