I take a chance he won’t push me away, and slip my arm back through his good one and lean in. “You’re not so scary, Maverick.”
His head turns sharply as he looks down at me, something like disbelief flashing over his face. It’s gone in an instant, but Isaw it. And it makes me wonder when he last had someone tell him something like that.
Tell him that he’s not a bad guy.
“You gettin’ those?” he asks and I nod. Then he takes the bouquet from me and looks to the vendor. “How much?”
Before I can protest, he hands the vendor some cash, and then leads me out of the stall, the flowers tucked into his arm.
“Thank you,” I say quietly. “I’ll pay you back.”
The hard look he gives me is obvious even from under the brim of his ball cap. “I can handle getting you some flowers, Specs.”
I gulp at the low rumble to his words. Maybe he’s not such a lost cause on this whole dating thing after all.
For the next hour, we wander through the market, sampling and buying a few things here and there. Maverick isn’t approached again, but I start to notice the stares we get from some people and catch more than couple of phones pointed our way. Even though I know one or two of them could be the photographers Colin arranged, it still makes my skin crawl, having all this unwanted attention on me.
Maverick seems unaffected, his gaze straight forward, ignoring the whispers and finger pointing.
“How do you stand it?” I whisper as we stand off to the side, waiting for the coffee cart to finish our iced drinks.
To his credit, he doesn’t ask me what I mean. I guess he wasn’t as immune to the stares and murmurs as he seemed.
“Comes with the job. If it weren’t for the fans, I wouldn’t get paid to do the one thing I’m good at.”
His response makes me pause. “But they’re not always friendly like that little boy, are they?”
Again, he just shrugs. “Nope. Can’t please everybody.”
There’s so much he isn’t saying, but this isn’t the time to push him to explain. We get our iced coffees and continue wandering through the market once again in silence. But at least Maverick’s body language has relaxed. He’s holding his coffee with his good hand but crooked his other elbow to the side for me to slide my arm through it. I try to be gentle, aware this is his injured side, but if there’s any discomfort, he doesn’t let it show.
Until someone bumps into me, hard, making me collide with his bad arm.
His grunt of pain is brief, then he’s stepping forward, his hand on the shoulder of the man who knocked into me.
“Watch where you’re going,” he growls. The guy turns around, a scowl on his face that deepens when he obviously recognizes Maverick.
“Hey, it’s fine,” I say quickly, sliding between the two. It’s probably not the smartest place to be, but the last thing we need is a scene. “I’m fine, it was an accident.”
But Maverick ignores me, glaring at the other man for a second. Thank goodness, he backs off first, raising his hands. “Whatever. Sorry.” He turns and is gone, disappearing into the crowd of marketgoers.
Tentatively, I reach out and touch Maverick’s side. “Come on, let’s go.” His Adam’s apple bobs up and down as he swallows, but I watch his jaw unclench. He’s still stiff as he pivots on his foot and starts to walk toward the street we parked on. He’sa step ahead of me, but I wait until we’re a little farther away from the market before I call out to him.
“Slow down, please.”
He comes to an abrupt stop, and when I reach him, his stare is hard, unflinching. Immediately, I worry it’s because of his injury. “Are you hurt? I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have been holding on to your bad side.” My gaze roves over him, as if I could see the evidence of his discomfort.
But he steps back, looking at me like he can’t quite understand me. “I’m fucking fine, Specs.”
I raise my hand in surrender. “Okay, good.”
We stand there staring at each other for a minute before Maverick’s phone chirps. He pulls it out of his pocket and looks down at it for a long second. “Well, it worked.” Turning the phone around to face me, he exhales slowly.
It’s a text from Colin with a screenshot of a tabloid site and two words.Good job.The photo is convincing, even to me. Maverick has the flowers in his arms and I’m at his side, smiling. We look every bit the happy couple. It’s startling how fast the press moves, seeing as that photo can’t have been taken more than an hour ago.
We’ve reached our cars by now, and an awkwardness descends, as if neither one of us knows how to end this. We might not be at the market any longer, but that doesn’t mean no one is watching. There could be people in the houses surrounding us or anyone walking down the street.
“I guess we should hug?” I say quietly when it becomes clear that once again, he has no idea what to do. Given Maverick’sjerky nod of agreement, he’s feeling just as weird about this as I am.
