Not that I didn’t love what happened the other night. Holy God, did I love it.
Which is precisely why I need to focus today. If we’re having a professional conversation about a business arrangement, I can’t very well go in with stars in my eyes and my ankles around my ears.
“So this is the contract my attorney has prepared,” Ian explains over the loud whir of a cappuccino machine. He’s wearing a dark purple T-shirt that lights green sparks in his eyes and makes his hair blaze with red-gold flashes. I could get lost in all this color, but now’s not the time for that.
“Contract,” I say, tearing a hunk off my blueberry muffin and shoving it into my mouth. “Got it.”
Ian rests a hand on a pile of papers that’s as thick as a dictionary, then pushes it across the table to me. “You can take your time reviewing it on your own, and when you’re ready to review it with your attorney, I’ll pay the legal fees for the lawyer of your choice.”
I stare at him as I finish chewing my muffin and pick up my steaming mug of cappuccino. “You have to appreciate the irony right now.”
The look he gives me is curious. He has both arms spread casually across the back of the booth, a position that’s made three different women ogle his biceps in the last ten minutes.
Ian, of course, hasn’t noticed. “What irony?”
“We’re sitting here in the same coffee shop where we hung out at nineteen when we had to dig through the seats of my 1997 Mercury Tracer Wagon to find enough change to split a small black coffee and a scone. Now you’re throwing around money like it’s something you use to wallpaper your den.”
Ian grins and drops one hand to pick up his double espresso. It’s a far cry from the sugar-laden Frappuccinos he favored in college on the rare occasion he had enough cash to splurge. Other than that, not much has changed.
Then again, everything’s changed, starting with the fact that Ian has been inside me and we’re considering tying the knot.
But we are sitting in the same booth we used to claim while studying for exams, so there’s that.
“I told you I’d make sure you were financially secure,” he says.
“I’m already financially secure,” I insist, blowing into my own coffee cup. Not this secure, but I do okay.
Ian sets his mug down and reaches across the table to brush my knuckles with the tips of his fingers. I shiver, even though it’s a platonic gesture. Mostly platonic. “That’s one of the reasons I think this is a great idea,” he says. “I know you’re not after me for my money. And I’m not after you for yours.”
I snort-laugh into my foamy cappuccino. “Hardly.”
“I already know you have a track record for not giving a shit about other people’s money, and you’ve made smart choices about your own. I dig that about you. It makes us financially compatible.”
“Financially compatible.” Be still my heart. I blow into my mug again. “So why get married at all? It’s not like this is frontier America and we’re pioneers who need to pair up for safety and breeding purposes.”
“Good question.” Ian reaches for his mug and starts to answer, then frowns as a woman walks past our table shouting loudly about her coffee order.
“I told you I wanted a venti soy quadruple shot latte with no foam,” she yells as she marches toward the counter. “This tastes like flax milk, not soy.”
Ian quirks an eyebrow at me. “Is it just me, or are coffee orders way more complicated since our college days?”
“You mean like the guy in line ahead of us?” I smile and do my best imitation of the skinny jean–clad hipster who has since left the building. “Mister I’ll have a fat-free iced macchiato, upside down, with two pumps of vanilla and three pumps of caramel.”
“Exactly.” Ian rattles his espresso mug in its saucer, but doesn’t pick it up. “Isn’t that basically a giant cup of sugar?”
“But no fat, apparently. And what the hell is upside down, anyway?”
“I think it’s a way of avoiding stirring your own beverage,” he says. “Because that’s too cumbersome?”
I giggle and take a sip of my drink, secretly wondering if Ian’s going to answer my question about why we should get married at all. I’m genuinely curious what he’d say.
“This is why,” he says. He gestures to the space around us, and it takes me a second to get his meaning.
“Why—oh.” I glance around the bustling little coffee shop. “You mean you want to get married for coffee dates?”
“Not just coffee dates,” he says. “Social engagements. Business meetings. Sunday brunches. It’s nice waking up in the same bedroom as someone and walking down the street hand in hand to have brunch in the neighborhood café.”
“Right.” When he puts it that way, it doesn’t sound much different from the sort of marriage I always pictured. Except?—
