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Why did that hurt?
“You’re not wearing yours either,” he said, reading her mind.
“It’s right here,” she answered, touching the outline of the two rings through the— Oh no, that’s right. She was rocking his shirt. He eyed the garment and bit back a grin.
He must have thought she’d been pining away for him like a lovesick Landon Paige superfan.
She was about to tell him she absolutely had not been pining for him, nor had she cross-stitched his face on a pillow, when he pulled a chain from beneath the collar of his shirt, and a platinum band caught the light.
“I’ve got mine, too.” He stared into her eyes, and his gaze softened. “It’s good to see you. You look—”
“I look like I’m vying for first place in a hobo contest or trying out for the part of street urchin inLes Mis.”
He chuckled. “You do have a way with words. You can paint a picture. I’ll give you that, bonbon.”
Bonbon.
He looked away. “We should talk about—”
“—getting to Libby and Raz’s new place in Crystal Acres,” she blurted. Their situation was out of control, but she couldn’t have the state-of-their-screwed-up-union conversation in front of a convenience store while cradling a dead plant.
He gestured to his Porsche. “Do you want to ride together?”
She waved him off. “I don’t want our friends to get the wrong idea. I haven’t told anyone about…”
“I haven’t either.” He shifted his stance and released an audible breath.
The man was in pain.
She wanted to reach out and touch him. The impulse was almost too much to bear.
But she didn’t.
She hardened her features. “You go ahead. My lateness will be nothing new to my friends,” she said coolly, gesturing with her chin toward his sports car.
“We should talk after.”
“Okay,” she whispered, the word coming out like a crack in thin ice, and suddenly, the rings around her neck weighed a ton.
“I’ll see you there,” he said, taking a step back but not looking away.
“Yeah, we’ll act like nothing happened. I’ll be my usual witty self, and you can be the self-absorbed pop star,” she added, trying to make a joke, but it fell flat.
For a beat, their eyes locked, but she couldn’t get a read on him.
Was it regret over what they’d done?
Disappointment over the fact that it had to end?
Or was it something unrelated to her, and she was the self-absorbed half of this marriage?
They’d gone into that night in Vegas saying it was a one and done—an evening to go wild, a time to forget their troubles and throw caution to the wind. But when he’d caught the bouquet and smiled that boyish half-smile at her, their connection had felt real.
A dare is a dare, and we’ve been double-dog dared.
“Go, you don’t want to be late,” she said, pushing aside her sappy musings.
He flicked his gaze to the ground and nodded. Without another word, he moved like a man who hadn’t slept in a week and folded himself into the Porsche. The car’s engine roared to life, and she watched the vehicle disappear into the traffic. She tightened her grip on the plant as her heart broke a little at the sight.
