“That’s fair.” We’re way past that first night at pizza and she can ask me anything. I readjust so I’m facing her and mirror my head on the sofa like hers. “We’ve always called her Stella. She never wanted to be called Grandma; it made her feel old.”
“Branding. The Hutchings are all about the branding.”
A smile escapes my lips and I nod. “Even when we were toddlers, it was Stella and Pops. Then the first time I witnessed her have confusion, it scared me a little, and I called her Grandma by accident. She calmed down pretty fast, and later she told me that was the way she wanted me to help herremember who she was. She said it helped her focus on who was really there for her. Her people.”
Nola’s face softens. “You’re not at all who I thought you were at the bar.”
“Yeah? Who did you think I was?”
“A typical bar jerk. Claiming your territory and not liking the fact a group of loud women encroached in your space. You had this whole narcissistic vibe going on and . . . if I’d known you were nothing but a big cinnamon roll, I never would’ve kissed you.”
“I’m sorry, a what?”
She looks at me like this is common knowledge and I’m an idiot. “Being a cinnamon roll is the opposite of toxic masculinity.”
I let out a laugh. “You thought I was toxic?”
“You were brooding and rude, peacocking and marking your territory all at the same time.”
“And now?”
“I don’t know. You weren’t going to let Emma make up her mile and you act aloof about things in general but when you take care of Stella in her most vulnerable moments? It shows me you’ve got what it takes to win over the right woman someday.”
It’s not my favorite thing that she’s passing me off to an unknown future woman. The announcement of my fake marriage is barely twenty-four hours old, and she’s already planning what happens down the line when we’ve gone our separate ways. Steering us back into friendlier waters, I ask, “So you wouldn’t have kissed me if you’d known I was a cinnamon roll?”
She pauses to think about my question as if she hasn’t thought about that moment in the bar since the night ithappened. The blush that creeps up her neck lets me know she’s thought about it, more than once. “I don’t know.”
“Did it mean nothing to you? You don’t peg me as somebody who goes around kissing strangers.”
Nola fidgets with the corner of her quilt. Her eyes focused on a loose thread. “I’d never done anything like that in my life. It only happened because Belle was being a bossy bride and wanted to play a game. Everybody had to do a dare that she decided.”
“You’re thirty-five.” I point out the obvious, confused, because I was under the impression women stopped participating in childish games like this when they were thirteen. I don’t remember my sisters ever doing anything like this, or maybe they did and I’m clueless.
She grins. “I never said I’m proud of going along with it.”
“Fine. What was your dare?”
“Belle dared me to kiss . . .” The rest of her sentence is mumbled and even in the dim light I can see an attempt to hide her embarrassment.
“Nice try but I’m going to need you to repeat yourself.” I reach out with my foot and playfully tap her toes that peek out from under the quilt.
“No.” There is a hesitancy behind her single-word response.
In a deep voice, I tease her. “No? As your toxic husband, I command you to tell me.”
She smirks and shakes her head. “It’s so embarrassing.”
“Why? It’s already over. Besides, now I’m going to be up all night wondering if your dare was to kiss the ugliest man, the saddest, most lonely man—Nola! Was I a pity kiss?” There isn’t a bone in my body that thinks I was a pity kiss. Women have never made me feel I’m a sympathy pick, but I don’tknow how else to get her to share what she’s thinking. And she isn’t like the women I’ve usually associated with, so I’m at a total loss. “Don’t be shy. It’s Thanksgiving—you can tell me,” I prod.
“If you really must know, I was ready to call it a night. And you were there.”
I wait a minute and she doesn’t elaborate, doesn’t blush, nothing. I help her out. “That’s it? I wasthere.”
“Yep.” Man, she is making it hard, but there’s more to it than she’s claiming. There were lots of guys in that bar that night who would’ve fit the requisite ‘there.’
“Try again, Adler. What’s the real story?”
“Fine.” She sighs in resignation. “Belle dared me to kiss the hottest guy of the night.”
