“You told a stranger we were married.”
“You looked like you were about to apologize to her for existing.”
“That feels exaggerated.”
“She touched your arm and you stopped blinking.”
I follow her toward the register, trying to recover from the fact that for thirty full seconds I apparently had a wife. A wife named Lila. Which is not a thought I should be having.
At all.
“Besides,” she says casually, setting clothes onto the counter, “it worked. She backed off, and you survived the interaction.”
I stare at her. “You could’ve just said I wasn’t interested.”
“Where’s the fun in that?”
“That was fun for you?”
Lila glances sideways at me, clearly fighting a smile. “Honestly? A little.”
Heat climbs back into my face.
I can’t fully process how naturally she fit against me. Or how instinctively my hand had almost settled against her waist before my brain caught up. Worse, some deeply embarrassing part of me liked hearing her call me honey entirely too much.
“Unless,” she adds lightly while the cashier starts scanning our pile of clothes, “you wanted her number?”
“No,” I answer immediately.
Lila’s eyebrow lifts.
I clear my throat. “I mean…no.”
Because the truth is, I barely noticed the other woman after the first thirty seconds.
All I’d really been aware of was Lila touching me. Lila smiling at me like we shared some private joke. Lila casually inventingan entire fake marriage with enough detail that my brain immediately started filling in the blanks in ways that frankly feel medically concerning.
“You know,” she says, voice quieter now, “most guys wouldn’t need rescuing from a pretty woman flirting with them.”
I glance down at her. “Most women don’t usually flirt with me.”
The teasing expression slips from her face for just a second.
Like she genuinely doesn’t understand how that could possibly be true.
Then she shakes her head lightly and looks away. “That honestly feels like a societal failure.”
The cashier begins eyeing us with undisguised interest. I wonder how much of our conversation she overheard.
“Just stocking up for tornado season,” Lila tells the cashier with a casual ease I envy. “Getting my partner here properly outfitted.”
The cashier—a middle-aged woman with a name tag reading “Darlene”—smiles knowingly. “First chase?”
“Is it that obvious?” I ask, resigned to my transparent status as a novice.
“That'll be $348.72,” Darlene announces, and I nearly choke.
“Three hundred—” I sputter, fumbling for my university credit card. “For clothes and boots?”
