Page 28 of Acting Merry
He chuckles reluctantly and shakes it, and some of the tension simmering beneath the surface diffuses with the gesture.
It’s a lot easier for me to be friendly with Brady when Reese is smiling.
Now, to keep that smile there.
seven
Reese
Winning feels good.Like, really good.
But the actual process was just as satisfying. When Cole threatened to turn up the heat, he wasn’t kidding. If distraction was his aim, he went above and beyond. I barely thought about Megan and Brady. Idid, however, think about kissing Cole plenty of times.
And not just for performance’s sake. Maybe that should worry me, but I promised myself and him to just have fun, and I’m not going to ruin a perfectly fun Christmas party by overthinking things. I’m a grown woman with perfectly functioning eyes and hormones. I’d worry about myself if Ihadn’tthought about kissing him.
But I’m also genuinely grateful to him. It’s hard to imagine what this evening would’ve been like without Cole here. Tess isn’t mean enough that she would’ve made me do the gingerbread contest by myself, but I’m not surewhat her plan was before she found out I was bringing him. It would’ve been unbearable to lose to Megan and Brady—by myself. I can just see it: my gingerbread house collapsing while they kiss over their trophy.
Next on the docket is dinner, which Hannah and Tyler are in charge of. Glazed ham, mashed potatoes, green beans, and homemade rolls are underway while the rest of us clean up the gingerbread house aftermath and set the table.
Conversation during the actual meal is fairly seamless. Cole doesn’t have a shy bone in his body, so he integrates with no problem. I feel weirdly proud of my fake boyfriend as he makes everyone laugh and pulls out a few stories to entertain. Even Brady’s chilled out a bit. I have no clue why he seemed so tense about Cole from the moment we arrived. It’s like he forgot that he broke up withme.
Cole and I are on dish duty afterward—he scrubs, I rinse, our arms pressed against each other.
I could scoot over and give him more space, but I don’t, and neither does he.
“It’s dark,” he says, nodding at the window above the sink.
I can barely see the fuzzy outline of the pine trees, and that’s only thanks to the white of the snow on their branches and their movement in the wind. Little ice crystals have formed a thin lattice around the edges of the window.
“Excellent observation,” I say. “Sometimes that happens at night.”
“I’m afraid of the dark, remember?”
I shoot him a look as he hands me a soapy plate, his eyes full of the type of mischief that gets my heart going.
“Hey, I didn’t make the rules,” he says.
“You’re more of the break-the-rules type, aren’t you?”
“Only if they deserve to be broken. Speaking of rules…you’ve broken one of ours.”
I look over at him, my brow puckered. “What? No, I haven’t.”
“Maybe not broken a rule, but you haven’t held up your end of things.”
I frown, but it only takes a second for me to realize what he’s talking about. “The post—for Bree.”
He smiles and nods, then wipes his hands on a dish towel and grabs his phone.
He puts his arm around me, and I slip into the perfect hollow beneath his shoulder, then wrap my arms around his waist, clasping my hands on the other side.
I know I’m allowed this type of physical contact with Cole, but it still makes my heart race.
“This is for you, Bree,” I say, smiling at the camera and waiting for him to snap the picture.
His finger is poised on the shutter button, but it hovers. He turns his head toward me, uses his fingers to tip my cheek up, then presses his lips against it.
His lips linger there for a few seconds before he pulls away.
