“It’s after midnight, so we’ve already broken rule number six, but I want to add rules four and five for good measure.”
No sleepovers, and separate beds.
“Are you propositioning me, Robert?”
I need him to say it. I need him to say he feels what I feel, this flicker, this attraction, this desire to cross the line from fake into real, even though it feels like we already have.
He nods, brushing his cold nose against mine, but he doesn’t say what I need him to say. He doesn’t say: “I think we’ve both been at least bending, if not totally shitting on, rule number twelve. This doesn’t feel fake to me anymore, Rhiannon.”
But maybe he will tomorrow. Maybe for tonight, it’s enough that he’s here, he wants me, and he’s not selling me out to his boss for a quick buck or the fame and glory of bedding a professional rugby player.
I hold out my hand to him, a nervous flutter in my stomach driving me forward. I’ve made up my mind to sleep with my fake boyfriend. I’ll deal with the aftermath, whatever that might be, in the morning. But as we get rejected by a taxi because we’re too wet for the driver’s back seat, wait for Sully to come pick us up, and make our way back to Larne, there’s a little voice in the back of my head that hopes he feels how I feel too.
Maybe Robert will want to make this a real relationship instead of a mutually beneficial agreement for a limited time only.
He holds my hand during the drive, our thighs pressed up against each other in an apprehensive silence while Sully quizzes us on our evening.
It’s not a good idea to tell Robert that I’ve officially crossed the line, and my feelings are on the wrong side of the rules. Realistically, it’s still early days in our agreement. It’s only July, and the season doesn’t start until September. If we make things real now, and have a shot at a proper relationship, there’s every chance it could get messy, and we could end up undoing all the good we set out to do for both of our images.
If I tell him I have feelings, and he doesn’t… I gulp. The embarrassment is already hot under my skin.
Fuck.
The lights of the harbor appear at the end of the dual carriageway. We’re almost home. I don’t have long to decide whether to get Sully to drop me off at my own house or leave me at Robert’s. The more I let rational thought enter the equation, the more it cements the fact I need to be sensible, gohome, rub one out with my vibrator, and wake up tomorrow with no regrets.
But the more I resign myself to that path, the more my stomach sinks. Wasn’t the whole point of my things-to-do-before-turning-thirty list to live for myself for a change? To figure out who I am, what I want, and do more things that I want to do?
Right now, I want to do Robert.
If I go home, I’ll regret it before my hair’s dry. If I stay, I might regret it tomorrow. But at least that regret will be warm, wet, and entirely my own fault.
So, when Sully gives me a sly wink in the rearview as I tell him I’m stopping at Robert’s, I blow him a kiss. “Don’t hate me ’cause you ain’t me, Sully.”
Robert opens my door and holds his hand out. “He can drop you home if you’d like.”
Sully wiggles his brows. “Yeah, you could always spend the night with me instead of Rob here.”
We all know Sully’s joking, but the animalistic growl catching at the back of Robert’s throat as he glares at his best friend takes the oxygen out of my body, replacing it with molten lava.
“If he takes you home, I’ll go with you.” Robert is very clear that no matter what I decide, he’s taking me to the door, be it here at his house, or at my own.
I grip his hand and glide out onto the street. It’s stopped raining, but we’re both still a little soggy. “And miss the chance for you to be my brew bitch for the evening? I think not.”
“He can’t make tea for shite, Rhiannon. You should get back in the car, and I’ll?—”
Robert slams the door shut before Sully digs his own grave, then he flips his best friend the middle finger, slides his arm around my waist, and guides me inside his house.
Mistake or marvel? We’re about to find out.
CHAPTER 38
Robert
If all Rhiannon wants to do tonight is drink tea, I admit, I’ll be disappointed. I’ve thought about getting her out of that dress all fucking night. But she seems flighty, unsure, like she’s being pulled in opposite directions.
“Upstairs, first door on the left. Towels are in the hot press, which is the first door on the right. If you need clean clothes, my tracksuit bottoms and t-shirts are in the chest of drawers next to my bed.”
The part of my brain that should be focusing on submitting the feature about women in sport keeps whispering I should be at my desk, not here. Pete’s probably already circling like a vulture, waiting for me to slip up. But I can’t think straight when she’s in my kitchen dripping rainwater and looking like the best bad decision I’ve ever made.
