“Why?”
“Because.”
“Because why?”
“Because I want to.”
“Why do you want to listen to this?”
“Fuck off, Ollie. Stop repeating me. What are you, five?”
Ollie rolled his eyes and took a slurp of the large blue-raspberry Slurpee we shared. His hair, having grown blonder after months on the yacht, fell into his eyes, and I pushed it from his face without thinking.
“You need a haircut,” I said when he raised an eyebrow at me. I looked away from him and shoved another bite of chili dog in my mouth, needing to make myself feel as disgusting as possible.
Ollie laughed. “So much for wedded bliss—”
“Shh,” I said. “Don’t even talk about it.”
Ollie rolled his eyes. “You look absolutely miserable. We can always get an annulment before—”
“Shh!” I said, and clapped a hand over his mouth. “I’m fine. Or I will be if you’ll just shut up aboutyou know what.”
Ollie pulled my hand from his mouth and set it in my lap. “It’s the kiss, isn’t it? That’s why you’re freaking out?”
“I’m freaking out because we just dropped off the license for our...” I paused to make sure no one was in earshot and dropped my voice to a whisper. “Fraudulentmarriage!”
“The kiss didn’t mean anything,” he said. “We had to do it.”
“Oh my God, Ollie. Please stop talking about the kiss. It was no big deal.”Then why does it feel like a big deal?the voice in my head said.
“Fine. No more talk about the kiss,” he said. “I... uh, got you something.” Before I could respond he leapt from the hood of the car and grabbed something from the center console, then returned moments later with a small black box in his hands.
“A little late for a proposal, don’t you think?” I said.
“It’s a thank-you gift.”
I laughed when he passed the little box into my hands.
“What?” he said, his ears turning pink again. “What’s so funny?”
“It’s just... well, we must be spending too much time together, because I gotyousomething too. It’s in the trunk. Here.” I pushed the box back into his hands and leapt from the hood of the car like he had a minute earlier.
When I handed the gift to Ollie, he tugged at the curled ribbon on top. “Yours looks nicer than mine,” he said.
“I’m a yacht stewardess,” I said. “It’s my job to make things look pretty. It’s nothing big. Open it.”
“Fine,” he mumbled, slipping off the ribbon and undoing the paper as if preparing molecular gastronomy for a picky guest on the yacht.
“Oh, you can go ahead and rip it open.”
He glared at me. “I don’t want to ruin your hard work!”
“It wasn’t that hard!” I reached over and tore part of the gift wrap so he would justopen italready.
When he finally got all the wrapping paper off, he lifted his eyes to mine. “Is this a shoe box?”
“Just open it, Oliver.”
