Page 23 of Slapshot Bride

Just like I did in that fitting room earlier, when it took every ounce of self-control I had to keep my hands exactly where they belonged.

“On second thought, I’m delaying all of the chaos,” she says.

“And it’s for a good cause,” I tell her.

“I hope so,” She heaves, and I watch her tired shoulders slump.

“You’re doing it right, sweetheart.” I wink and she rewards me with an even bigger smile. “You don't respond to a managed message until you have managed your own. He's putting you on the back foot. You stay on your own foot.”

She looks at me.

I don't look back, because I don't trust my face right now.

I'm looking at the muted television, which is showing a basketball game I have no investment in. My peripheral vision is doing all the work it isn't supposed to be doing.

“You are full of surprises, Easton Mysterious.”

“I have hidden depths.” I glance at her. “And I do know a thing or two about handling complicated situations.”

She raises a brow. “Should I be concerned about why?”

“Absolutely.” I grin at her.

Riley tucks her feet under her and reaches for the book she has commandeered from the small stack on my coffee table, the one I bought because the realtor’s designer suggested I might want something with weight on the surface to break up the visual planes, and then never opened. She’s been working her way through since we returned, while I've been pretending to watch television.

What I've actually been doing is watching her.

I don't want to be doing it. I've made several deliberate attempts to stop doing it. I'm doing it anyway.

It's the small things.

The way she folds her feet up under her. The way she gets a strand of hair caught on the corner of her mouth and pushes it away with her knuckle without looking up from the page. The way she has settled into my couch like a cat that has decided this is its couch now.

She doesn't know she's doing it. That is what is killing me. She's the most observed woman in Los Angeles right now and she has, in my living room, completely forgotten to be watched.

I stand up, and she does too. I clear out the table and she stretches, letting out a groan, one that sounds more like a throaty moan, and has my fingers squeezing the carton in my hand.

“I'm going to take a shower,” she announces.

“Another one?” The words are out of my lips before I stop them.

“Yeah? Are there rules against taking multiple showers a day in this house?”

“Not at all, do as you wish, milady,” The faux-formal voice slips through and she doubles over, laughing.

“Please, never do that again.” She taps my shoulder and walks off.

I stand there grinning like an idiot.

Warmth settles somewhere in the center of my chest as I watch her disappear down the hallway. I made her laugh.

After the day she’s had, that feels like a victory.

Get over it, Easton!

The thought hits like a slap.

She’s a runaway bride. A temporary guest. A woman still reeling from the wreckage of her own wedding day.