What things, though, I’m not sure.
I fulfilled my part of the agreement tonight. I made Holden look like the perfect candidate he is. So why it feels like he wants to say something to me about it, I’m not sure.
I’m also not sure I even want to know.
As I take off my robe and hang it on the bedpost, I can feel him watching me. And I wish for the first time that things between us could be different. How? I don’t know. There’s so much I don’t know. But I do regret that I like him so much—that talking to him is so easy, and working with him on things from crazy marriage plans to seducing a CEO is so much fun.
Because he’s going to leave. I can feel it. And that’s that.
The mattress sinks with my weight.
“How do you feel like tonight went?” I ask.
He rustles beside me. The sound of him setting his phone on the nightstand pops through the air.
“I think Dr. Montgomery likes you,” I say as I get settled beside him, being careful not to bump or touch him in any way.
“Oh, I think Dr. Montgomery is smitten with you. If he were thirty years younger, he’d give me a run for my money.”
He looks at me across his white cotton T-shirt. Our eyes meet somewhere in the uncertainty between us as we realize the words he spoke.
Holden’s eyes divert to the blankets. “Well, you know what I mean.”
“I do. You mean theoretically.”
He rolls over onto his side to face me. I tug the blankets up to my waist and tap them snugly around me. Maybe it’s because I’m nervous, and when I get nervous, I get cold. Or maybe it’s to put a barrier between his body and mine, I don’t know, but I tuck those suckers around me tight.
“You really like it here, huh?” he asks.
“Where?”
“In Honey Creek.”
My throat feels dry. “Yeah. This is home for me. My brother and sister are here. All of my memories. Why?”
He shrugs as if it were some random question that just popped into his mind. But the way his forehead creases makes me think that’s not true.
“No reason,” he says. “I’ve just been thinking . . .”
He wiggles around in the blankets, sticking a leg out and then pulling it back in. He shoves an arm under his pillow and then uses it to prop his head up. It’s like watching an overgrown child not want to go down for a nap, and I can’t help but giggle.
“What?” he asks.
“Nothing. You’re just moving around like you have ants in your pants.”
His grin is subtle. “I assure you that ants are not what’s in these pants.”
I look away, embarrassed at walking right into that one.
“So back to my thinking,” he says. “If I get the job with Montgomery, we don’t have to get divorced right away, you know.”
I press my lips together as a physical block to keep from speaking. I’m not fully confident that my language will match the instructions sent from my brain.
The command center in my head is shouting at me to proceed with caution. My mouth is ready to spill some kind of crap that will indicate that I kind of like being married to him so far and that maybe we can try out one of those newfangled marriages where the couple lives apart. People do it all the time.
Lucky for me, I’m aware that my mouth is a traitor to my best interests.
He searches my eyes. “I’m just saying that there’s no rush.”
My throat burns with a tightness that comes just before tears. I force a swallow and plead with myself not to go there.
I part my lips and test my restraint. So many things, questions, and possibilities are coursing through my brain, and I’m not sure which will shoot into the air if I open the gates. But I can’t sit here and not say anything at all.
“What will you do if you don’t get the job, Holden?” I ask.
My fingers dig into the blankets, curling the soft fabric in my hands. I can feel the material scrape beneath my fingernails. I try to keep my face free of any of the emotions that well up inside me.
But hope is building in my heart. The painful experience of it swelling has me holding my breath.
I hope outright, without telling myself not to. I allow my heart to wish that he will choose me. This. Us. That for the first time in my life, someone will think I’m worth fighting for.
It’s risky and potentially devastating, but it’s where I am. I’m hopeful. I’ve been quietly hopeful all along.
I guess I’m more like Liv than I thought.
“I don’t know,” he says carefully. “I’ll have some decisions to make, then, I guess.”
“I guess so.”
“There’s something I didn’t tell you.”
The fabric clenches harder in my hands. “Oh yeah? What’s that?” I slip my gaze up his torso and to his face. His eyes are mossy, like a storm is rolling in, and a smile plays on his lips.
My heart thumps in my chest because I don’t know where this is going, and by every indication, it’s going somewhere interesting.
“Pap offered me the clinic.” His voice is quiet, soft, but edged with what I think is a tempered excitement.
I unclench my fists. My shoulders twist so I can face him more head-on.
“He did?” I ask.
The surprise in my voice somehow tugs at the corners of his lips. They rise higher and higher until he’s in a full-blown smile.
“Would you consider that?” I ask, aware of how excited I sound. It completely defeats my efforts to not show him exactly how I feel, but I can’t hide it. I don’t want him making a decision because of me and then resenting me for it.
I want him to want to stay on his own.
My palms begin to sweat against the blankets, and my legs are suddenly too hot all tucked into the sheets.
I free my legs from their confines and scoot one foot to the edge of the mattress. I watch his handsome face for any indication as to what he’s thinking.
“Would you want me to?” he asks carefully. “If I stayed here . . . I mean, we’re married. What does that look like for the two of us?”
“I . . . I don’t know . . .”
My brain races almost as fast as my heart as I try to get a grip on all this.
“Well, if I lived here,” he says, forcing a swallow, “things might get more complicated. It’s not like I can just move out and get out of your hair. I mean, unless you wanted me to—”
“No,” I say quickly, much too quickly. I clear my throat and then carry on in the hope that it distracts him from my interruption. “I’m just saying that if you moved out, then the rumor mill would turn on, and neither of us need that. Right?”
He nods, biting back a smile. “Right. Could you put up with me for a while? I mean, I don’t mind living here. With you.”
I try not to return his grin but fail epically. “I don’t mind you living here. Too much. With me.”
“I can see why. I’m an easy guy to get along with.”
“Oh, whatever,” I say, rolling my eyes. “It’s really just that I’m terrific at dealing with assholes. I married Chad. There are—ah!”
I yelp as Holden grabs me by the arm. He untucks my body, swirls me around, and has me lying with my back to his front and his mouth hovering over my ear before I realize what’s happening.