Something dangerous.
“I know,” I say quietly. “It was fine, really.”
A photographer materializes beside the table with terrifying stealth.
“Can I get a candid?”
To be honest, there is nothing less candid than a wedding photographer asking for candids but Colton doesn’t hesitate. Hisarm tightens around me as the photographer lifts the camera, and before I can prepare myself, he leans in and presses a kiss to my cheek—not somewhere near my cheek for appearances’ sake, not one of those carefully choreographed almost-touches meant to look intimate from the right angle, but anactual kiss, warm and brief and startlingly real, his lips lingering just long enough to make me question everything all over again.
I laugh automatically because that is what a wife is supposed to do when her husband kisses her in public…right? Especially when there’s a camera documenting the moment, except the sound comes out all wrong… too soft, too breathless, stripped of the careful performance I’d been maintaining all evening… and the worst part is that it doesn’t feel acted at all.
The photographer lights up. “Perfect!” he chirps before disappearing into the crowd.
I stare after him.
Then down at my wineglass.
Then at absolutely nothing.
I suddenly feel detached from myself.
Like I’m watching my own life happen from several feet outside my body. Hell. It was just a touch and a kiss. I’m acting like a teenager.
Across the table, Priya sips her Negroni.
“You two are disgustingly good at this,” she says. “Honestly? I almost believe you like each other.”
Colton raises one eyebrow. “Only on Thursdays and major holidays.”
“Today is Saturday,” I point out.
His smile appears slowly and there it is again. That stupid shift in my chest. That warm tightening sensation I absolutely refuse to examine too closely because it’s becoming easy to do this with him.
To slip into these rhythms.
The teasing.
The touching.
The easy intimacy.
Sometimes it feels less like acting and more like muscle memory.
Which would be concerning if I intended to emotionally unpack it.
But of course I do not.
The first course arrives and plates are set before us with soft, elegant thunks. There are microgreens positioned with mathematical intent, tiny edible flowers scattered across the plate like decorative confetti, something foamed, something smoked.
“It looks like a woodland diorama,” I murmur.
“I think that leaf just judged me,” Colton says.
I snort.
At the same moment, Colton glances down at his phone.
His expression shifts immediately into weary resignation.
