Goodnights were said to the Foxes, and we loaded up into my truck. Kellan still hadn’t been by his place to pick his up yet. We were headed back to my place to gather up Cornbread’s stuff so he could actually go home. And that meant that finally there was nothing and no one standing between me and my confession.
The burger and potato salad I’d managed to choke down at the MacAvoy’s cookout threatened to come back up. Absolutely nothing today had gone the way I expected or wanted. I mean, I had expected Kellan would play along with the whole thing. But I hadn’t anticipated he’d throw himself into this with so much… gusto.
For just a moment, my brain shot back to that parking lot, to that kiss.
God, that kiss had knocked me sideways. I’d planned on a quick peck, just enough to sell the lie to everyone watching. Instead, the moment our lips touched, everything changed. His hands had found my waist, pulling me closer. His mouth moved against mine with a heat that had my toes curling in my boots.
The tenderness and hunger in that kiss caught me completely off guard. Kellan Fox wasn’t supposed to kiss like that. He was my best friend, my business partner, the guy who’d spent countless hours debating the merits of different fertilizers with me. The guy who thought cargo shorts were acceptable business attire.
But there’d been nothing friendly about the way his fingers had traced up my spine. Nothing casual about how his breath caught when I’d gripped his shoulders. And absolutely nothing platonic about how he’d deepened that kiss until I forgot we had an audience.
Shit, was it hot in here?
Nothing after that had gone like I’d wanted either. Instead of being able to pull him aside immediately, it had been hours. More and more people had seen the two of us together, with Kellan acting like the doting fiancé. More lies. More faking. He didn’t need this. Not after coming off a year’s deployment. Not ever.
Guilt hung over me like a lead cloud.
“You okay over there?” Kellan’s voice cut through my thoughts.
I darted a glance his way. He lounged in the passenger seat, one arm propped against the window, watching me with those sharp eyes that always saw too much. Cornbread’s head rested on his shoulder from the backseat.
“I’m sorry. About all of this.”
He reached out and laid a hand briefly on my thigh. “It’s okay. I’m not upset.”
The touch burned through my jeans, derailing whatever I’d been about to say. Had he gotten so into his role that he forgot we didn’t do shit like this?
“How…” I swallowed and tried again. “How can you not be upset that everyone in town—including our friends and family—think that we’re engaged?” And that they were all acting like this was an obvious outcome for the two of us. That might have been the weirdest part of the whole thing.
“We’ll figure it out.”
Easy for him to say.
I took a deep breath, ready to launch into the whole thing.
“Wait.”
I glanced back at him. “What?”
“It’s literally five minutes to your house. I suspect the story is gonna go better with alcohol. You have not been imbibing, so maybe a beer would make this go down a little better.”
He wasn’t wrong.
“Yeah, okay.”
That five minutes somehow passed like both seconds and years. At my place, I sprang Cornbread from the backseat. He raced ahead of us, dancing in front of the door. Courtesy of the cookout, he was getting his own dinner late. I let us all inside, and the dog made a beeline for the kitchen. Signs of him were everywhere, from the big squishy bed in the living room to the dozen toys scattered over the floor and the bowls in the corner of the kitchen. He bounced in front of the latter.
“I know. I know. You’re hungry. I’m coming.”
The idea that he’d be leaving tonight filled me with an odd sort of grief. I’d gotten so attached to having him in my house. A big warm presence at the foot of my bed. Not that I was quite ready to admit to Kellan that I’d shamelessly spoiled his pup beyond belief while he’d been gone. In the grand scheme of admissions, that was a big nothingburger.
While I filled his bowl with kibble and a few spoonfuls of the soft food with gravy that he loved, Kellan pulled a couple of beers from my fridge. He popped the tops and sprawled at the table, stretching out those long legs still clad in his fatigues. He used one booted foot to shove out the adjacent chair. “Sit.”
I followed the order, resisting the urge to hunch my shoulders.
He tipped back the bottle, closing his eyes with a sigh. “This. This right here.”
“The beer?” I asked, faintly baffled.
