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“Oh. Who did you date?” My words are scratchy, like I swallowed a handful of glass shards in the past five seconds.
Her body shakes with the smallest of laughs, and I scowl. “I’m not telling you that.”
“Rory Tellerman. That’s the woman I dated,” I blurt out.
“Okay . . .” She trails off.
“Now it’s your turn.”
She makes that snorting laugh sound again. “You’re relentless.”
“What if one of them decided to come back and try to win you back? I have to know who to prepare myself for. You know, as your fake boyfriend.”Yeah, that makes sense.
“Hunter King and Logan Parker. And I doubt either of them so much as remember me, let alone want to try winning me back.”
I furrow my brows, frowning. “Why do you say it like that?”
“Like what?”
“Like the idea of them wanting you back is at all unrealistic.”
The wooden sign with cursive letters spelling out the name of our restaurant peeks out above a long row of shops, and I start to slow my steps, not wanting to cut this conversation short.
Braxton is taking too long to answer me, so I give her hand a squeeze, hoping to reassure her enough to speak whatever she’s thinking.
“You know I’m not skinny, Maddox. It’s hard to miss. I’m not everyone’s type, and I’ve accepted that. Hell, I’ve even grown to appreciate the honesty I get from the men who tell me that straight to my face, even if it’s a blow to my pride every time. I would rather the honesty than be used as some experiment for men who have never been with a chubby girl before. That’s all I was to those guys. A naïve girl who thought that a guy was into me, even though he really only wanted to know if he was attracted to bigger girls.”
Rage. Red, blinding rage roars deep inside of me. Words evade me. All I can think is how badly I want to hurt those guys for hurting her. For tainting how she thinks of herself and how much she’s worth in a relationship.
All it takes is one pull on her hand and she’s following after me, trying to keep up, her heels clicking at a fast pace on the sidewalk. I pull us into a break in the buildings and grip her hips, pulling her in close to my body. The soft flesh beneath my fingers is the furthest thing from a turnoff. I rumble a groan at how easily this woman turns me all the way on.
There are questions in her eyes, along with far too much doubt. One look at her has me willing to fall to my knees and beg for forgiveness on behalf of every single man who has stopped her from feeling like she’s the most beautiful woman to exist.
“First of all, if you refer to yourself as chubby again as if it’s a big, bad thing, I will spank your ass so hard you won’t be able to sit for a week. And second, I want to kill those men. You . . .” I drop my head and shake it. My tongue feels tangled, but I force myself to keep going.
“You are everything, Braxton. And you deserve to feel like it. There is not a single part of you that I don’t love. That I don’t want to touch and kiss and memorize. Those guys, they were boys. Small-dick, insecure pricks. They wouldn’t know a good thing if it smacked them in the face. And you? You’re thebestfucking thing. Okay?”
A subtle nod as a tear leaks from her eye. A tear I gently wipe away with the pad of my thumb before pressing my lips to her forehead and holding them there for what feels like hours but is really only a few seconds.
“You’re perfect,” I breathe against her skin before inching back and wrapping my finger in one of her curls. My knuckle brushes her cheek, feeling how warm it is. “I’m proud to have you as my fake girlfriend. There is nobody better. No one.”
She surprises me by stepping up on her tiptoes and kissing my jaw, hovering her mouth over it as she says, “Thank you.”
“There’s no thank you needed. Just have dinner with me and eat until we’re so full we have to waddle home. Can you do that?”
I pull her into my arms and hold her tight, loving the feel of her cheek against my chest, right over my heart as it thumps quick and hard. She lets out a long breath, and it warms my skin beneath my shirt.
“I can do that.”
There’s more I could say. Maybe more than I should have said. But I hope that what I did say made a difference. If it takes me the rest of time, I’ll help erase the damage those assholes caused. That’s a promise that I make to myself right here, right now.
No matter what happens in the coming months, I will be here to remind her just how amazing she is.
24
BRAXTON
Our waiter returnsto our table, quietly setting a tequila sunrise in front of me and a glass of Diet Coke in front of Maddox. We both thank him before he shuffles off, having taken our dinner order a handful of minutes ago.
