"It's a good thing I married you, Salt, because you're a marriage expert." I continued to talk through my Pepper puppet.
The edge of Maya's knuckle pressed lightly against mine. Nothing other than platonic, but we may as well have been standing at the altar.
She'd touched me with her knuckle then. All smiles as Liberace read the vows.
I'd been happy as all fuck when she lifted her knuckles and ran them along the edge of my beard.
My phone buzzed near my hand on the table. I ignored it. Honestly, her headache was rubbing off on me, what with trying to keep up with the puppet show.
We sat there on opposite sides of the table with Salt and Pepper and a lot of awkward settling right there on the table between us.
"The thing is, I used to be in love with the idea of being in love. But I don't feel that way anymore. This isnota love story." Her eyes pleaded with me to understand. The thing was, I understood. I understood perfectly.
I pulled myself taller and said, "All of this? It's exactly why this marriage will work."
CHAPTERNINE
MAYA
"The marriage will work," he said, as though I didn't hear him the first time.
For real though, why did he keep saying that?
I shook my head. "There's no way it will work. Here's the plan. Monday morning, you and I head to the courthouse." I held firm to that stance. "We do our thing there—sign the dotted lines and file the papers. Then we go our separate ways. Nobody even knows what happened this weekend." Honestly, not even the two of us. "Let's keep it that way."
Sloan grimaced.
I didn't like that grimace.
Then he pulled his lips to the side. Unfortunately, that look did nothing to thwart his curb appeal. Was it too much to ask that he not be good looking while we discussed ending our marriage?
"Here's what I'm thinking instead." He pushed his plate to the side and leaned in so he didn't have to speak so loudly.
Given how this entire conversation had gone so far, I was fairly confident that I wouldn't want to hear whatever he was about to say.
So, I also pushed my plate to the side. Leaned in and said, "I already don't like what you're thinking."
"If it's the assets part of this, and you're worried, I'm not out to get your stuff. I can have a lawyer draw up a post-nuptial agreement, so you're protected," he suggested. "I don't mind doing that. It makes sense."
"You mean so you're protected? I mean, it's not like backup singers make the same cake as pro-football players." Not even in the realm of the same number of commas and zeros on the checks.
He held up his hands like he was sayingwait a second,but with his hands instead of words.
"I don't know what your financial situation is," he said. Dammit, he was genuine. "But I want to be clear that I respect that what's yours is yours. I, just, I want you to think about becoming comfortable with my idea. Don't discount it without giving it a shot."
I did one of my few parlor tricks and lifted my left eyebrow. I didn't have many of those, but I could roll my tongue over both ways and roll my eyes so only the white showed.
I paused for five seconds, counting each of them out in my head.
"Okay, I've thought about it. We should annul," I said.
Actually, then he rolled his eyes in what was clearly a mock defeat. Mock because there was no way a guy like Sloan admitted defeat easily.
His eye roll wasn't a full all-white version like I could pull off—there was still pupil.
His phone chimed with an incoming text. This time, he glanced at the screen. "I need to?—"
He held up the phone.
