He pursed his lips. “Go on…”
So she told him what she’d heard and then finished with, “It’s probably best we get on with the ruse so we can get broken up.”
His mouth pulled down briefly before he recovered. “How about dinner at my restaurant on Friday? We’ll get pictures. Post them. Then you can officially knock me back, and we can all move on.” With that he grinned, but it was definitely forced. “Hopefully, enough time has passed I won’t be inundated with new prospects again… Assuming I can keep Annie off my socials.”
He lifted his water glass to his lips, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed.
She couldn’t seem to pull her gaze away from the column of his throat. A few steps and she could be right there sharing his air, moving to him. Getting rid of all the pesky space between them and let her mouth brush his. Ethan and ice, and she wouldn’t care less that he would upstage her at every turn.
What mattered would be the way this Ethan in her mind took over the kiss, parting her lips with only a slight movement of his mouth. He’d have no issue sweeping his tongue against hers.
Oh yes. That would be a wonderful kiss. Maybe the best kiss she’d had.
“You’ve got a whirly bird swirling in your head,” Real Ethan said. Which was the truth because Ethan in her mind had a wandering hand going to her waist, bunching the fabric there and sliding lower…
Reaching for a cookie, she took a bite so she could focus on something other than Pretend Ethan and his wandering hands.
Of note, the cookie was delish.
Chapter Fourteen
EMMALINE
“C’mon,”Emmaline said, the words under her breath as a prayer, and a wish, and all the hopes as she searched through the bin of clean laundry she’d pulled out of the dryer.
This was asituation.
Not a horrible situation, but she did sort of prefer to wear full-coverage panties to fancy restaurants with her fake celebrity-chef boyfriend before their real breakup.
She’d gotten caught up with an extra batch of business cards for agents in the greater Cincinnati area, and Sketch discovered a love of pulling—and eating—the clothes from her laundry basket.
She loved him. She did. He would someday be a wonderful addition.
But—unfortunately—today, thanks to Sketch, the only underwear she had left was her you-haven’t-done-laundry-enough thong. The pair she kept as an emergency fallback in the dredges of her underwear drawer.
“Yoo hoo,” Barbie said as the doorbell announced the front door breach.
Well, it didn’t say the wordbreach, but it gave the gong sound that announced it’d been opened.
She’d agreed to hang out with Sketch at her house, until Em was finished with the not-a-date date.
“Hey, Barbie,” Emmaline shouted back. “I’m in the laundry room.”
Barbie sauntered through the kitchen to the laundry room, blowing on her fingernails. “Have you tried these sticker things?” Barbie held up her fingers. “They’re paint in astickeryou just press right on the nail bed. Can you even believe it?”
“I tried those once.” Emmaline hadn’t been super successful, and they’d all peeled off within an hour. “They didn’t work for me.”
“I keep blowing on them, but they’re already dry. Strangest thing.” Barbie tapped each of the front of her fingernails against her bottom lip, tongue, and teeth, all while making a unique facial expression that Emmaline couldn’t quite describe. If she were to try, it would be the look of someone tasting fingernail polish and not enjoying it, but then going back for more.
“I’m going to give you a manicure if I can figure out how to make them stay put. I give the best manicure. I don’t even need a license because I’m that good.” Barbie pressed her hands on the hips of her leopard print pants. She’d cinched them tight with a belt and paired them with a bright yellow bodysuit top.
The kind of outfit Em would never have the courage to wear. Yet, Barbie pulled it off in spades.
“Ethan’s going to be here any second.” Emmaline gave up on her hunt for not-a-thong undies and checked her purse to ensure she had extra cash and a credit card just in case.
Lip gloss. Check.
Mascara. Check.
