“I know. I don’t like that either.” Aston’s fingers play with my rings before he gives my hand a tug, forcing me to face him. “But we are a couple. So the marriage stuff will just be a funny story we tell one day.”
I scrunch my nose. “You think?—”
“I know. I’m crazy about you and you’re crazy about me?—”
“I never said that,” I quip, and he smiles.
“You didn’t have to. I can tell.”
I roll my eyes, but there’s no heat to it. “Always so cocky, this one.”
“You make me that way.” He squeezes my hands. “I really am crazy about you.”
I step into him and stare up at his handsome face, my chest fluttering and my body just… happy. This guy makes me happy, and I’m desperately trying to shut off the part of my brain that is waiting for the other shoe to drop.
“Good. I like you that way. And even though it’ll feed your massive ego, I’m crazy about you too.”
“Then we’ll get through the fake part and focus on the real part.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
“Except…”
“Except what?” I ask, noting the sudden turbulent shift in his blue eyes.
He blows out a nervous breath, something I don’t see on him often, if ever. “I have no clue what today is going to be like for either of us,” he starts, looking as though he’s searching for the right words even as he says them. “But, sweetheart, I don’t want to keep saying it’s fa?—”
“Ah, there you are,” my grandmother calls from across the room, cutting Aston off. “Come join me.”
Octavia Abbott-Fritz is wearing a deep red dress that accentuates her regal features. Her blonde bob is as perfectly styled as it always is, and her makeup is flawless. For a woman in her nineties, she looks fabulous and spry as she sits at one of the low tables with a glass of champagne in her hand.
Aston gives me a nervous look, but we join her at the table, taking a seat with her after we each kiss her cheek.
“You’re cheating,” I tell her. “You get to have a drink, and I can’t.”
She laughs. “How is my great-grandchild doing? Growing well?”
“I hope so. I’ll find out tomorrow at my ultrasound.”
“And naturally you’ll send your grandmother a picture of that,” she demands lightly.
“Naturally,” I agree.
“And you, Aston. I just had the pleasure of seeing your Zoey. She’s so lovely. It warms my heart that you’re officially part of the family and taking care of my granddaughter.”
He grins. “Differently, but yes. Though Skylar might disagree.”
“Not all the time,” I tease.
“But you care for her. I can see that all over you,” she says to him before a certain kind of smile lights her face.
“Yes, ma’am. I do.”
The way he says that to her makes my heart thrum against my ribs. Before I can stop myself, I lean in and kiss his cheek. It shocks us both and pleases the hell out of my grandmother, but I don’t care. This is not something I ever expected from Aston Hughes, but here it is. Still, I’m afraid. Afraid of fully letting go. Afraid of falling in love. It feels impossible to trust this, but I’m trying.
He's not Josh. Aston thinks I’m all the things I know I am. And when I lag on that, he pushes me and forces me to believe it again.
“Octavia, dear. I’m too old to be a ma’am.” She winks at Aston. “The happiest couples take care of each other, don’t they? And it seems to me you’re both already doing that.”
