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“You should totally tell me what’s up with you instead of keeping it all inside your pretty little head. Just sayin’. If you don’t let it out, your head’s probably gonna explode.”
I peered at him over my sandwich.
“Wow, is that theory backed up by science?”
“You know it, bitch.” He chuckled.
My cheeks puffed out as I blew a tired breath. “I don’t know where to begin.”
“The beginning usually helps.”
So that was where I started. The beginning. The rollercoaster of emotions I’d been on ever since Walker and I had signed the certificate at our strange, too-real and not-quite-real wedding ceremony; the blurred lines that formed between us; and most of all, the feelings that had welled up when he’d put together the gallery showing with Alex, and the disappointment that’d followed when he’d started to pull away.
There had been a real warmth between us… but I couldn’t figure out if it was just the past rearing its ugly head at me or if it was real.
“Sounds like you guys are just in a rut,” Alex said after I finished, wiping his mouth with a napkin.
“A rut?”
“Yeah.” He shrugged. “You know, you’re hitting your stride, you’ve reconnected in a lot of different ways… but there’s this whole unspoken thing that’s underlying all of it. You guys have so much history; I think it’s keeping you from seeing what’s right in front of you. Right now. Not seven years ago. Now.” He smirked, crumpling up the napkin and dropping it on his empty plate. “Honestly, I think what you need to do is bust the seriousness of everything that’s going on right now. Don’t let Walker just escape back into his Mr. Workaholic persona. Do something fun. Spontaneous. Sexy.”
I raised my brow. That definitely wasn’t the advice I’d been expecting.
“Something… spontaneous and sexy? That’s what you think will get things back to normal between us?”
“No, girl!” He shook his head, looking at me like I was a dummy. “Not back to normal. That’s the whole point. ‘Normal’ for both of you is standoffish and awkward, holding onto your damn cards like you’re playing the most cutthroat game of poker in the world. For just a little while there, you both let go, and things were great. You need to get back to that. Not normal.” A mischievous gleam shone in his eyes, and he tapped his finger against his chin. “Hmm. I think I’ve got the perfect idea. Tell you what…”
* * *
Several hours later, I was in an elevator on my way up to Walker’s floor, wearing a knee-length fashionable trench coat.
And nothing else.
Well, okay, not quite nothing, but close enough to it that I’d been beet red the entire cab ride over, certain the cabby somehow knew what I was hiding under my outer layer.
Beneath the coat, I wore some extremely skimpy lingerie I’d bought a few months ago when I’d been considering getting back in the saddle and trying to date again for the first time in a while. Unfortunately, the whole ‘dating’ thing hadn’t gone very well, and I hadn’t even taken the tags off the lingerie until today.
A nervous jitter made my heart slam against my ribs. This wasn’t something I was used to doing. At all. I mean, sure, a scenario like this was the stuff fantasies were made of, but wasn’t that the whole point of fantasies? They were about things you’d never do in real life.
And yet, thanks to two tequila shots—courtesy of Alex—and a promise from my best friend that this would definitely shake things up in our ‘marriage’, here I was.
Calm down, Mackenzie. It’s almost 9 p.m. Definitely after hours. There’s no one there but Walker.
Crossing the coat’s belt in a slipknot for easy access, I forced myself to take deep, soothing breaths. I was so nervous, I was about to start flop sweating—and that would completely ruin the sexy effect I was going for.
When the elevator dinged on the thirty-first floor, I straightened my spine, put one hand on my hip, and affected a sexy swagger. I stepped out of the elevator in my four-inch stilettos—
And promptly got my pointy heel stuck in the small gap between the elevator and the main floor.
My momentum kept moving forward, and I toppled like a tree falling in the woods.
I caught myself as I landed, cursing as I did.
“Titty-twisting mother-loving son of a goat!”
Slipping my foot out of the trapped shoe, I yanked on the heel, but it was wedged tight.
“Dick bags!”
