Page 66 of No Headlines Please

He leaned back against the couch. "I'm not married."

Obviously, there was more to this story. "So…divorced?"

"Almost."

"Wait…how can you be almost divorced?" My stomach sank. "Unless you were hedging about not being married? Like…you're separated or something?"

"No hedge," he said. "Never married. And if I were, I wouldn’t be sitting here with you now." He held my gaze for a long moment before asking, "And you wanna know something?"

Something in his eyes made my heart flutter. "What?"

His voice softened. "It would've been my loss."

My mouth opened and then closed, because I had no response – well, nothing except my blush, which burned my cheeks even as I finally asked, "Are you teasing me?"

"Would it scare you if I wasn't?"

I gave it some thought. "Honestly? I think I'm a little scared you are teasing me."

"Don't be. I meant what I said."

For one dangerous second, the look in his eyes almost made me forget how this conversation had started, with me pointing out the imbalance in what we knew about each other – as if he had something to hide.

I swallowed. "So these secrets of yours…how bad are they, exactly?"

"I'll let you decide. Which one do you want first? The one about the cancelled wedding? Or the one about the favor for a friend?"

I gave it some thought. "That depends."

"On what?"

"Just tell me…you didn't help a friend bury a body, did you?"

"Hell no." The corners of his mouth lifted. "You don't bury them. You toss them in Lake Michigan. What, you didn't know?"

Without thinking, I reached out and gave him a playful swat on the shoulder, which was a huge mistake, because even though the contact was brief, it was still long enough for me to notice that his shoulder was very hard.

And muscular.

And warm to the touch, even through his shirt.

Our eyes locked, and I leaned toward him a fraction, only to pull back when I realized I was like two seconds away from climbing onto his lap – and without getting answers, too.

He'd mentioned two secrets – one about a cancelled wedding and another involving a favor for a friend.

Call me predictable, but from the start, I'd known exactly which one I wanted to hear first – and it wasn't about the friend. "Okay…since you asked, I wouldn't mind hearing about the wedding."

"Cancelled wedding," he corrected. "It's no wedding if it doesn't take place."

27

Mental Whiplash

Delaney

By now, I was dying of curiosity. "Just to be clear, this was your cancelled wedding, right?"

Something unreadable crossed his face. "Yes."