Page 87 of Honeymoon Phase
Me:Everything okay?
Roe:I’ll tell you about it when you get back.
Me:I’ll be home soon.
Roe:Good. I’ll be waiting in your bed.
I close my eyes as ache blooms in my chest. She has no idea what those words do to me. How much need they stir up in every cell of my body. When she crawls into my arms every night, when I smell her all over my sheets the next day... I’m in heaven and hell right now and just happy to be existing in any way with her.
My best friend.
My wife.
It will be good to go out tomorrow night with everyone and play the part of husband and wife. But right now, I just want to go home and cuddle with my best friend.
Chapter 28
Fact or Fiction?
I love my best friend.
Addison
Luke’s jaw is on the floor when I walk out of my bedroom for our big night out with his brothers and the ladies. I want to roll my eyes and laugh at his reaction, but I suppose he hasn’t seen me dressed up since... well... since our wedding day. And even that was an outfit I just tossed on. I didn’t have time to do my hair and makeup, so this is a bit of a glow-up moment for me.
I’m wearing a rust-colored cropped sweater with a black leather miniskirt and knee-high black boots. I’ve curled my long dark hair into loose waves, which is something I rarely make time for because I always end up tying it up anyways. And my makeup is dark and more dramatic than I usually wear it. I’m a tomboy for sure, usually choosing a pair of my well-worn Converse sneakers over a pair of heels, but after the fight I had with my dad yesterday, tonight I wanted to walk out of my bedroom and feel beautiful for my husband.
And Luke’s reaction does not disappoint.
His eyes unabashedly move up and down my body as he gets a desperate, frantic look on his face like a person drowning and grasping at the surface for something, anything to hold on to. I’ve been seeing that expression on him more and more lately. He usually tries to hide it, but I clock it. It used to make me uncomfortable, but lately, I seek it out. Crave it. Feeling his eyes on me causes my entire body to hum with appreciation.
As desire settles in the pit of my belly, I bite my lip and look away from him. I need to remember this marriage isn’t real. It’s just convenient. Temporary. We’re friends.
But sleeping with Luke every night this week has made that reality feel a bit less... real. And I’m still working through how I feel about that.
I push those anxious thoughts to the back of my mind and smile at my husband. “Did I overdo it for the Merc?”
He shakes his head and stutters out a labored breath. “Not at all. You look beautiful, babe.”
There’s thatbabeword again. He’s using it more and more and I hate how much I love it. It shifts Luke from friend category into boyfriend category, which is weird because he’s already in husband category. Things are getting complicated.
“Did you talk to your dad?” Luke asks, eyeing me thoughtfully.
I shrug. “I texted him and asked how the meeting went. He said fine. That was it.”
My mood shifts with this change in topic. I was looking forward to a night of forgetting and now he’s dredged it all back up again. But I love Luke for caring. It feels nice having someone to offload this stuff to.
Luke chucks me under the chin. “He’s not going to make you go through the act of planning a whole wedding and sell it out from under you, Roe. He’s not that big of a dick.”
“You sure about that?” I ask, eyeing him warily.
He laughs and shakes his head. “Let’s forget about it for tonight. That can be tomorrow’s problem.”
“And what will be tonight’s problem?”
“My family,” he replies with a grin, walking toward me, dressed in a green flannel and jeans, looking like some sort of sexy mountain man postcard. He’s left his hat off for tonight, so his shaggy dirty blond hair is loose around his face and tuckedhaphazardly behind his ears. His beard has started to grow back the past couple of weeks, so it’s finally just about caught up to the length of his mustache, but there’s a tiny little spot on his chin where the hair won’t grow because of his scar.
I fight the urge to reach out and touch it nearly every day.
