“And you’re making an honest man out of Mr. Ralston here,” Wally said. “I suppose it would take someone who knows how to dole out the discipline.”
Emme cocked her head to the side but her smile never slipped. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”
Wally belted out a laugh and didn’t trouble himself with noticing that Emme and I hadn’t joined in. When he was finished, he pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and blotted the corners of his eyes. “What a delight you are,” he said to Emme. To me, he tapped the handle of his stick against my chest and added, “It’s a fine thing to see you’re settling down. It’ll do you good.”
Wally made a show of bowing his head and kissing Emme’s knuckles again, and then found someone else to harass. Not a minute too soon.
When he was on the other side of the patio, Emme whispered, “What the fuck just happened here?”
“You just got me one very big step closer to sealing my franchise deal,” I said. “Which means we’re leaving right the fuck now.”
“Open your mouth.”
I stared up at Emme and the hands she held poised over my face. “Where did you learn this again?”
“Just do it,” she said, her fingers wiggling. “You’ll feel so much better.”
Little did she know, lying on a massive bed with my head in her lap while we shared a bottle of wine already had me feeling pretty great. “Remind me what it is you think you’re fixing.”
“Your jaw,” she cried. “All the clenching and grinding. You’re giving yourself headaches.”
“Not that I’ve noticed.”
She gave me a flat stare. “Probably because it’s turned into one long, constant headache and you’ve just accepted the pain as part of your everyday life.”
When I didn’t respond—because she wouldn’t believe the amount of pain that I’d accepted as part of my life—she brought fingers to either side of my face, right near my ears. She pressed her fingertips down the line of my cheeks, moving in small circles as she went.
“Open,” she said, digging a bent finger into my cheek.
I gave up the fight. I didn’t care if she’d learned this from some snake oil science video she found on social media. I didn’t want her to stop.
“And close,” she said, slowly dragging that finger down the ridge of my jaw.
A sound grunted out of me as the motion unspooled some ancient store of pressure. “What the hell was that?”
She brought two fingers to either side of my jaw, slipping through my scruff and working up to my ear and then back down. “Just me being right once again.”
“Hmm. Should’ve known.”
I continued opening and closing my mouth on command, and Emme continued kneading and molding me. It reminded me of all those times when we were younger that she’d plop down beside me and announce I needed a hand massage after a long written exam or I should try a pumpkin face mask with her or something like that. Those were my favorite momentswith Emme. I’d faked so many hand cramps the last year of high school that she looked up wrist exercises.
“What was the deal with the guy?” she asked after a few minutes. “The one who just needed a monocle to complete the rich villain look.”
“His grandparents started a bunch of gas stations across the southeast like a hundred years ago,” I said. “His dad turned it into a chain of highway off-ramp convenience store destinations but also bought big stakes in other businesses. Trucking companies, logistics, cardboard manufacturing. And now Wally is chairman of the board but has no hand in day-to-day operations. He sits on a pile of cash that he uses to buy whatever amuses him, among which currently includes soccer club franchise licenses.”
“And somehow he finds time to shove his tongue between random women’s fingers,” she mused. “Easy, easy there. Don’t go clenching that jaw up on me after I worked out some of those rocks.”
“I’m sorry you had to deal with that.” I glanced up at her as she went to work on my temples. “If there was any other way?—”
“I knew what I was getting into when we started playing fake fiancé,” she said. “You forget I’m very familiar with that old money crowd and all their weirdness.”
“I’m still sorry about it. Especially the slobber he left on your hand.”
“Why soccer?” she asked. “Did someone say fútbol so you went along with it and you didn’t realize the mistake until it was too late?”
“Funny.” I watched as she grinned, amused with herself. She was so damn cute. “You know why.”
She gave a shake of her head that said she wasn’t playing ball tonight. “If I knew, I wouldn’t ask.”
