I still mumbled under my breath and put up the illusion of a fight to look more impressive and fearless in his eyes, which sounded stupid when I thought about it more, but I still did it.
Being the prickly, no-nonsense guy he was, with a hand on my back—literally—he pushed me all the way down from the apartment to the car where Raymond was waiting next to the passenger door, as if I’d run away from him like a kid if he wasn’t keeping his hand on me. I was quite fine with the acting, because it kept his hand firmly on my back. So, joke’s on him. I managed to mumble and mutter the entire way down in the elevator, and he didn’t even utter a word.
There was something about his gruffness that I just loved. It would put some people off, it definitely had put me off, but the more I got to know him, the more I found it adorable.
As Raymond drove me to the coffee shop, I had an amused smile plastered on my face the whole time because Jack had looked so triumphant as he shut the car door in my face.
I chatted with Raymond to hide my giddiness and learned more about him. One particular subject that came up a few days into our morning rides was him trying the online dating scene for the first time in his life after divorcing his ex-wife, who he had caught cheating with one of his friends. Thank God they hadn’t had kids. We were both happy about that, and the retelling of the horrible and awkward dates provided much amusement that early in the morning.
At the end of the week, we pretty much knew almost everything about each other, and it had stopped feeling like he was my driver and had turned into going to work with a friend. It also helped that he was the only person who knew about our fake marriage and never even mentioned what a weird thing it was.
There were plenty of times when I wanted to prod him about Jack, just little questions here and there, but asking him how long he’d been with Jack was as far as I’d gotten.
He looked at me through the rearview mirror in a weird way. “Six years. He doesn’t let a lot of people in, but once you get to know him, he isn’t as bad as he looks.”
I thought he looked pretty great, but I was pretty sure Raymond wasn’t talking about his appearance. He surely possessed a wealth of information on the man who was my husband, but it didn’t feel right to pepper him with questions, so I chickened out. After a few days, I had accepted that I would have to personally experience the ultimate joy of learning about my fake one true love who hated sharing any kind of personal information willingly unless you hounded him about it for quite a while.
One thing I’d learned was that he hated when I asked and answered questions on my own as if speaking for him. That was a good way to get him all frowny and talking on his own. I didn’t think he liked me much when I did that, but then again, I didn’t think he liked me much most times.
I would have liked to think he tolerated me, and I thought that was at least a good starting point.
I, on the other hand, was actually getting used to his Grinch-like ways. The day he gave me a warm and genuine smile, I was going to celebrate with cake. I still didn’t like some things about him, like barely managing to greet people around him and maybe a few other things, but we weren’t in a real relationship so I didn’t feel like I had the right to nag him about any of them. To be fair, I thought it was just his personality. He didn’t go out of his way to ignore people. He couldn’t help it if he had been raised in a stuffy, rich family.
The only time I hated him a little bit in the entire week leading up to the weekend where we’d have to attend our first big event as a married couple was when he gave me his credit card in the kitchen on Wednesday.
“About the event on Saturday—this is important,” he started as he walked into thekitchen, startling me as I was reaching for the travel cups on the higher shelves.
“Jesus!” I sputtered as one of them came a little too close to landing on my face before it crashed to the floor. “What are you doing up so early?” I asked as we both crouched to pick it up. It played out just like in the movies. I was faster than him by a second and closed my hand around the cup just before he wrapped his big hand around mine. My head jerked up and I managed to hit his jaw with my head. All I heard was a grunt and then my cheeks were blazing.
“I had it,” I croaked, wincing and massaging my head where I had hit his surprisingly tough and perfectly shaped square jaw while still on my knees on the floor.
When I peered up again, he was rubbing his jaw as well. I didn’t know what else to add to the conversation when my eyes landed on him—he looked too good to be true for such an early hour even though he’d probably just rolled out of bed. I, however, had to wake up at least half an hour earlier than I was supposed to so I could make myself look somewhat presentable to the world.
Inwardly, I cursed myself for taking the extra ten minutes in bed that morning and deciding to do my makeup at the coffee shop. I tore my eyes away from him and got up on one knee. He extended his hand to help me get the rest of the way up. As soon as I reached for his hand and our skin made contact, we experienced a little zap of electric shock between us. I thought, just to be on the safe side, I should get up on my own, but he was still holding his hand out between us, so I gave it another go.
“I’d like to live through this day—don’t zap me,” I muttered, slowly taking his hand and letting him pull me up. When I was on my feet, I realized I was standing a bit too close to him, close enough to feel his body heat.
“Are you okay?” he asked, looking straight into my eyes with what looked like worry.
A little flustered by his closeness and his hypnotizing eye color, I remembered that I should probably let go of his hand.
“Yeah. Sure.” I took a step back from him, plastering myself against the edge of the counter. “Good morning. Hi.”
“Good morning.”
“You’re never up this early. To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“I am usually up this early.” He checked his watch. “You’re fifteen minutes late. Usually I don’t see you in the kitchen. You like to run down the stairs and out the door every morning. I can hear you when I’m having my coffee.”
“Oh, I didn’t know that. If I knew you were in here, I’d say good morning before I left.”
“That would be nice.”
At his unexpected admission, I didn’t know what to do with myself. Nodding and clearing my throat under his unflinching gaze, I looked away. When I noticed he was closing the cabinet door, I stopped him with a hand on his arm.
“I need the other travel mug, too.”
“For what?” he questioned, glancing at my hand on his arm before he reached for it. I pulled my hand back and kept it behind my back so I wouldn’t get myself in more trouble.
I thanked him softly when he put the cup next to the other one on the counter, close to the shiny espresso machine. “The other one is for Raymond.”
“You two seem to get along well,” he commented casually—perhaps a little too casually.
I gave him a quizzical look before trying to refocus on the coffee. “We spend every morning together, so yeah. I mean, we talk. Is that a problem?”
“Of course not.” Looking a little uncomfortable, he shifted on his feet, surprising the hell out of me. “I was just trying to make conversation.”