AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I’m seeing only possibilities. Will you take his name when the two of you tie the knot? Mallory James. It’s got a ring to it. Or you could hyphenate. Mallory Bishop-James. Or James-Bishop. Both work.”
“Will you be my maid of honor?” the second girl asks with an exaggerated, dreamy sigh, and they both start to laugh.
I stay very still and try to gather my thoughts. Somehow I’ve pushed the fact that I’m sort of, possibly, maybe, kind of, actually married to the possible future Mr. Mallory James completely out of my head. As in, I haven’t spared it a single thought in… weeks.
It seems like a pretty significant thing to just conveniently slip my mind. Then again, I’ve been a bit preoccupied. With having lots of sex with Ryker.
What’s the protocol here? What’s a guy supposed to do when he’s sort of accidentally started dating his husband?
I chew on my lower lip.
I’m being pretty damn presumptuous here. In all honesty, I have no idea what Ryker and I are doing. Yeah, we spend excessive amounts of time together by now. Yeah, we’re having sex. Yeah, it started as him experimenting. Then again, it hasn’t felt like just sex anymore lately. Of course, just because I’m admitting that to myself right now doesn’t mean Ryker feels the same way or is on the same page. Hell, he might not even be in the same book. Or in the same bookshelf. He could be biding his time before moving on to bigger and better things. And he hasn’t mentioned wanting anything at all from me other than sex.
Do I want anything more? I don’t know. My first, overwhelmingly powerful emotion in connection to dating anyone at all is straight-up fear. Fear of rejection. Fear of abandonment. Fear of getting hurt. Fear of being tossed aside like I mean nothing.
But underneath that, there’s also this other part. The one that’s been in hiding for a long time. The one that clears its throat and says, “But what if?”
But what if he won’t reject me? But what if he won’t abandon me? But what if he won’t hurt me? But what if he won’t toss me aside?
But what if I gave it a shot?
Yeah, well, as tempting as that sounds, there’s still that whole ‘being married to him’ business that needs sorting out. I’m thinking the only way to see if there might even be a chance for something to happen between us is to sort that divorce out first. It’ll be like a clean slate. Yeah, I’ll still owe him money, but maybe I could have a lawyer draw up an official payment schedule while I’m at it. He shut me down every time I approached him with that idea when we discussed the marriage, but it’d be better to have that. Something official and signed and legally binding that’d assure us both I’d pay the money back no matter what might or might not happen between us.
That sounds like a plan.
First I’m going to divorce my husband.
Then I’ll see if he maybe wants to have a relationship with me.
RYKER
We demolish Notre Dame 6-1. Not gonna lie, it feels great. I’m so pumped up it’s a shame we can’t have a party to celebrate, but we’re playing Notre Dame again tomorrow, so it’s off to bed for all of us.
Although I wouldn’t put up too much of a fight about a private celebration. I’m not sure what the likelihood of that happening is, but I bet if I brought the idea up in front of the right person, I wouldn’t have to do too much convincing to make it happen.
I already have my phone out, ready to text Lake, but it turns out it’s not necessary because when I finally make it out of the arena and head to my car, I find him leaning against the hood, waiting for me.
He’s alone. No Rachel. No Kelly.
He straightens up when he sees me approaching. There’s a sort of half smile on his face that slowly drops off as I approach. He looks nervous, like he’s not sure he’s supposed to be here. I don’t understand why, exactly. Here is where I want him to be.
I reach him and just barely stop myself from kissing him. There are way too many people around though, and what I want to do and what I can do in public right now is a Venn diagram without any overlap.
“Hey,” he says, fidgeting with his gloves. “I wasn’t sure if… I mean, if you wanted to meet up or not? So if you have plans, I’ll just get out of your hair.”
He sounds weird. All nervous, even though I don’t think he’s ever been nervous around me, and I also don’t think I’ve given him a reason to feel that way now.
“You came to the game,” I say.
He avoids my gaze and clears his throat. “Yeah.”
“Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?”
I shuffle closer. Close enough that maybe it’s not exactly how close two friends usually stand, but I refuse to overthink every aspect of being with Lake. I already stopped myself from kissing him, so I should at least get to stand on the edges of his personal space without making a big deal out of it.
“Spur-of-the-moment decision,” he says, still avoiding looking at me. “I wasn’t sure if you—Oh, hey, congrats on the win!”
He does smile then, and I grin back.
