He pushed to his feet and shot a parting glare at the sloped ceiling. “I don’t, but I know people who know people.”
I followed him to the door, saying, “If you can take care of Ines for the summer, I promise I’ll marry youandmake it look good.”
He backed onto the landing, the rough hint of a smile brightening his face. “And if not? How will you make it look?”
“Oh, it’ll still be good,” I drawled, “but I’m skipping the painful-yet-effective push-up bra. The one that screamsbarely contained barmaid.”
Then again, every day wasbarely contained barmaidday when you were a 36F.
His gaze flew to my chest before blinking away. He cleared his throat and rubbed the back of his neck. “Skip the bra either way.” Another glance at my cleavage and he groaned to himself, adding, “I mean, you don’t need to be uncomfortable. Not—not for my benefit.”
I leaned against the doorframe, laughing. My opinion of myself wasn’t so high that I couldn’t enjoy some light objectification. At this point, it was all I had going for me. “Good to know.”
“I’ll text you tomorrow,” he said. “We’ll get that visit to your classroom set up.”
Ryan made no move to go. I peered up at him for a moment, willing him to blow off his meeting and stay here with me. Talkwith me like we used to. Tell me what he was really thinking, because just as he could see through my walls, I saw through his, and I knew this wasn’t as simple as he wanted me to believe.
“Sorry to get stuck in the details,” I said, “but what happens next? With the whole marriage thing.”
He stowed his phone in his back pocket and nodded to himself, like he was making a decision he didn’t feel the need to share with me. “What would you want to happen next?”
“I don’t know.” I tossed my hands out and started talking with all of my limbs. “Are you telling people we’re engaged?”
“Do you want to?”
“I just want to know the plan,” I said. “What are we saying? Who knows about this? Am I registering for a waffle iron? These are the important questions.”
The corners of his eyes creased as he asked, “A waffle iron?”
“Yes, and I can only conspire with you if I know the whole conspiracy,” I said.
He brought his fingers to his temples and kneaded his brow for a moment. Then, “Let’s wait until next month to say anything. After the school visit and the charity ball.” He leaned in and brushed some lint away from my hair. His phone buzzed, but he didn’t seem to notice. “It won’t seem so sudden.”
A month seemed plenty sudden, but that was the difference between our worlds. “What about your family? How are you going to explain this to them?”
He stared into my eyes like he was trying to find something in there. Better judgment and common sense, perhaps. “There’s nothing to explain. They’ll get it.”
I couldn’t imagine Cecelia Ralston accepting that her only son wanted to fake a whole damn marriage just to buy some soccer teams, but I had my own parents to worry about. At least with them, I knew the value they both placed on marriage was low enough to not care one way or another.
“Are we eloping? Or are we planning a wedding?” I asked.
He went back to the hair spilling over my shoulder and dragged his fingers through it. I must’ve had a lot of fuzz from my scarf in there again. “What do you want?”
“I—I haven’t thought about it,” I admitted, and it was the truth.
“Well, I have,” he said, his words low, like a secret. “And I know I want to marry you as soon as I can.”
Right. That made sense. I should’ve known he couldn’t wait months or even years to plan a traditional wedding. That didn’t work for his world domination plans.
“But I also know I want to have a big party,” he continued as his phone went on buzzing. “Something in the off-season. A huge blowout bash. Hundreds of people. A twenty-tier cake. A really good band. Fireworks.”
“A tequila luge,” I added.
“Fuck yes,” he said with a growl. “That’s what I want.”
I realized I was smiling. “Okay,” I said. “Then I guess I’ll just get started on finding a luge vendor?—”
“No,” he said quickly. His phone buzzed again. “You have enough going on and—and we could do both.” When I only blinked, fighting for my life to catch this train of thought, he continued. “Yeah. That makes more sense. Elope then have a big party.”
