“Your parents’ or any of your sisters’ houses don’t count.”
“I’m tellin’ them you said that,” I said, stepping out of the car before he could respond. I shut the door on his laughter, and my lips twitched at the sound, though I tamped down my reaction.
Truthfully, I’d been tamping down a hell of a lot of my reactions lately when it came to him.
I opened up June’s door and helped her get unbuckled from her car seat and climb down. “C’mon, Junie B. Uncle Asher’s got your brother.”
“How come you call me that?” June asked, her head tilted to the side.
“What? Junie B?”
“Yeah. Is it for Junebug, like Uncle Asher calls me?”
I ruffled her hair. “You’re a smart one, aren’t you? Pickin’ up that bug starts with B. But no. It was my favorite book series when I was little. Junie B. Jones. Have you heard of it?”
June’s eyes lit up as she stared at me. “Oh yeah! Momma got me one of those. Can we read it?”
I glanced over at Asher, whose face had gone tight with sadness, and I swallowed down my own. I had absolutely no experience with kids, which meant I had even less experience with kids dealing with grief. But even with my complete lack thereof, I knew enough that I was still waiting for the other shoe to drop.
June had taken her parents’ deaths surprisingly well. Though I assumed that was because the little girl didn’t quite understand the permanence of it all. Owen most certainly didn’t. But every day at each mention of Aubrey or Nathan, I waited for it to finally sink in for June. Truthfully, I had no idea how we’d manage that when the time came.
I cleared my throat and nodded, squeezing her hand. “Sure, we can. We’ll start tonight. As long as you don’t plan on pukin’ up your entire weight in cupcakes again.”
She grinned widely and bounced at my side, tugging on my arm as she did so. “Can we get some?Can we?”
Asher, carrying a sleepy Owen, strolled up to the two of us, shaking his head as he reached for the door and held it open for us to walk in ahead. “Junebug, you’re the only human I know who gets sick off a food and still wants it.” He leaned forward as I passed, his breath a whisper against my ear. “And you’re in the doghouse for even mentionin’ them.”
I locked down my muscles in an effort to keep my shiver under wraps. Because I didn’t do things like shivering all thanks to my best friend whispering some nonsense in my ear. In fact, it was rare I did shivers, even while I was naked and my bed partner for the evening was working diligently to elicit them.
But I wasn’t going to think about things like that now. Not while we were pretending to be a happy—and in love—couple. Not while we were ring shopping for our upcoming wedding. And not while?—
I screeched to a halt, Asher plowing into my back and setting a hand on my hip to steady himself.
“Whoa, sorry,” he murmured, then glanced down at me, one eyebrow raised. “What was that all about?”
“I don’t think we thought this through.” I gestured to the incredibly crowded and most definitely not childproof store.
The space was small and cramped, every square inch covered with…stuff,save for a tiny walkway. And even then, objects sometimes spilled over into it. As far as I could tell, there wasn’t a rhyme or reason as to how it was set up. It wasn’t separated by item or even era, just a haphazard sprawl that would, no doubt, be a chaotic four-year-old’s dream.
“Shit,” he said under his breath, clearly coming to the same conclusion I had. Namely, there was a whole lot of stuff to break in here. “I don’t know why you wanted to come here for a ring anyway. There’s an actual jewelry store right down the street. You wanna go there instead?”
No, I absolutely did not want to go to a traditional jewelry store. I had no plans to be a traditional bride. Even if this wedding were real, I still wouldn’t be one.
So, I tightened my resolve, along with my hold on June’s hand, and marched us toward the jewelry case in the center of the crowded space.
“No touchin’, Junie B,” I said, glancing down at her. “I’m serious. If you break something, I’ll probably have to sell your uncle Asher to pay for it.”
June’s eyes went wide, and Asher laughed, reaching out a hand and palming her head. “She’s just jokin’, Junebug. We’d sellherif anything like that happened.”
Without looking, I reached behind me and swatted him, my hand connecting with the warm solidness of his stomach.
He grunted in surprise, then stepped up next to me, slid the arm that wasn’t holding Owen around my waist, and lowered his lips to my ear. “I don’t know why you’re hittin’ me when you’re the one who started it,” he said, a teasing lilt to his voice.
“Well, aren’t y’all just the most adorable family I’ve ever seen!” A woman in her late fifties with clumps of eyelashes as fake as her nails—which looked like they could kill a man—stood behind a cashier counter adjacent to the jewelry case. She beamed an overly white smile at us, her bottle-blond hair curled in perfect waves.
“Oh, we’re not—” My words got stuck in my throat as Asher squeezed my hip, and I clamped my mouth shut, because…yeah. We were supposed to be this family. Wewouldbe this family, even if just for a little while until everything got sorted.
It had been easy when we’d been locked in the four walls at home, but now that we were out in the world, I’d nearly forgotten I had to pretend to be a happily shackled woman.
