“Dearest, uh…man meat, can you help me in the kitchen? You were supposed to be making this meal, after all.” Alex’s saccharine voice sounds like nails on a chalkboard.
“You’re absolutely correct, sunbeam. My apologies.”
“Before you leave, can you help me up? I’d like to use the restroom,” Mags asks while pushing against the arm of the couch.
After assisting Mags to the—now clean—bathroom, I barely make it two steps into the kitchen before Alex flattens me against the refrigerator—sans knife, luckily.
“We’re not going on a date tomorrow,” she whisper-hisses. “If I have to hang out in a coffee shop for hours so Mags thinks I’m gallivanting around the city with you, so be it. Why are you complicating things?”
I let the smile curving my mouth spread slowly. “It’s realistic that I’d want to take you out. I was being true to ourfakerelationship.”
Alex finches at the emphasis I place on the word fake.
“Besides, I think you like spending time with me.”
This earns me the eyeroll of the century. “I definitely do not.”
“If you dislike me so much, why do you have me backed into a corner?”
Alex’s lashes shutter, but she quickly recovers. “You don’t listen to me unless I get in your face.”
“I don’t?”
“No.” She pokes me in the shoulder, her finger lingering. “You like to go off script with dozens of crazy ideas.”
“I think you mean fun,” I say, taking a gamble and gripping her waist with one hand.
It’s slightly too forward, but Alex’s palm flattens against my chest in response.
“None of this is fun.”
I lift my head off the cool refrigerator door, bringing our lips closer. “I beg to differ.”
The thumping of my accelerating heartbeat is replaced with sweeping orchestral music when Alex’s gaze stalls on my mouth. As much as she likes to bicker with me, I’ve noticed how she seems to track my movements. It could be the attentive reporter in her, but I’m betting it has more to do with the crackling chemistry between us.
Our uneven breaths mix for three heavy seconds before Mags rattles the door handle to the bathroom, and Alex jumps back like she’s been burned.
“I’ll let you…” She takes a steadying breath, straightening her shoulders. “I’m going to catch up with Mags while you cook.”
I nod, still a little shaken myself.
As I prepare dinner, I notice how Alex turns herself sideways on the couch, pulling one leg beneath her. She keeps tucking her hair behind her ear to peek at me from the corner of her eye.
I smile into the pot of simmering marinara.
This fake relationship might finally prove to Alex that I’m not quite the enemy she thinks I am.
Chapter 13
Alex
As expected, Tenny charms Mags throughout dinner. He makes her laugh with random Waves anecdotes—like how his manager hums “Good Vibrations” while waxing his mustache before every game. Tenny gossips about his newest teammate, Shane, and how the rest of the team has bets on when he’ll finally stop being such a grouch. Then he tells us stories of Randy, his middle school coach whom we met earlier, and falling in love with baseball as a teen.
While Tenny has his guard down, I should use this opportunity to dig for information. My producer has generally been happy with my reporting so far, but he’s still hounding me to get something real.
“I want something other shows don’t have. I want grit.”
The thing is, I’d been on board with revealing Tenny’s seedy underbelly when I thought he’d been a careless womanizer, but I’m beginning to think maybe the media had it wrong. Either that or I’m being thoroughly duped. He mentioned Georgia doing theater; maybe he picked up a thing or two about deception from his sister’s various roles.
