“You’re stalking me after agreeing to fake-marry me because you think I’ll be useful in a treasure hunt for a treasure that might not exist. You almost got into a fistfight with my grandma’s preacher’s grandson, who’s being an even bigger dick than I remember him as. Also, my ex-boyfriend broke into my house and stole a pirate coat. I think I have a right to be suspicious.”
“The last time I did a fake wedding, the bride was more grateful.”
I roll my eyes, which is likely the tequila’s doing. It’s making me mouthy.
And I think he knew it would.
“Excuse me. My humblest apologies for not worshipping at your feet for your magnanimous gesture ininsistingthat you help me. You aresucha man.”
Is his—it is.
His smile’s getting bigger.
His eyes are even twinkling.
I point my glass at him. “Stop it. Do not twinkle. You don’t get to twinkle.”
Shit.
I’m getting toasty.
But I’m not shivering anymore.
Actually—I shrug out of his leather jacket, but not before I sniff it one last time.
It smells like campfire and tequila. Like fresh pine logs and s’mores with a hint of smoke.
When I miss men, I miss how they smell.
But I don’t often miss men.
I hand the jacket to him. “Thank you, oh benevolent king, for the undeserved gift of warmth.”
Fucker smileseven bigger.
And it makes him look twenty years younger.
I used to watch all of the YouTube videos I could find of Bro Code performing, especially after I left Grandma’s house and moved to Copper Valley for nursing school.
Davis smiled like that when he was performing. Regularly in photo shoots that went along with tabloid interviews. On the billboards around Copper Valley advertising the hometown band.
He was far less hairy then, but that smile—that smile was why he was my favorite. It spoke to my soul.
In a parasocialI’m never going to meet this guy and he has no idea I existkind of way, but it did. It made me believe I wasn’t going to hell.
It made me believe that not only would there always be good in the world, but that I was part of the good in the world.
Now, you don’t see it on him when he’s out in town.
But here he is.
Smiling.
At me.
“Are we in an alternate dimension? Because you don’t dothis. Thishappything. What’s going on here?”
“It’s an honor to have your suspicion, my lady.”
