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“A rather accurate one.” He studied her, chewing on the corner of his bottom lip. “Okay, then. Ayesha’s favorite color? Alert me when she picks just one. Her favorite movie? According to Theo, James Cameron’sThe Gigantic.Her favorite food?Alert me when she picks just one.”
She sputtered a laugh.
“What was our first date?” he asked.
“Easy.” She swatted the air. “Napili Plaza. You took me to lunch, and we ate burgers and gravy fries. Then we conked out and nearly missed picking up the boys from school.”
“Nope. See? They’d catch us. Toss us in federal prison for fraud.”
“What’s our first date, then?”
“Brunch after Gage and Tayler’s wedding,” he said, with zero hesitation. “Think about it…I came to your room to ‘pick you up.’ We sat together, eventually, and ate off each other’s plates. Then we took a private tour around the city.”
“Everybody did the tour, though.”
“But who’d you sit next to? Whose shoulder did you lean on when you got tired toward the end of the tour? And, if memory serves me correctly, we slept together that night.”
“Yeah,literally.With the boys between us.”
“Semantics.”
“Plus, I sat next to Xara on the tour bus,” she reminded him. “You switched seats with her, and then, yes, I might have leaned on your shoulder.”
“And hugged my arm, making me feel all warm and fuzzy when only seconds before you told me you didn’t want me.”
“Dramatic much?”
“So you wanted me?”
“You know I did.”
His strokes grew longer. “But that was our first date. Agree or disagree? Did I make my case?”
She tapped her lips with an index finger. “Hmm. Maybe you’re right. I mean, I did get dolled up for you for brunch.”
“That dress you had on when I came down for the pen?” He drew her closer. “Iknewthat was for me.”
“Did you like it?”
“You almost didn’t make it out of the room.”
“What does that—”
“But back to the original topic,” he redirected. “That could work, us getting married, but what about after the process is over? We get married for a year or two and then dissolve it?”
They could.
Over her dead body.
“Eesh, I don’t know if I can go through another,” he looked down, “divorce.”
She followed his gaze to where she’d started twisting her wedding ring around her finger. He’d stopped wearing his at some point, though she didn’t know when. Oddly, however, he put it back on whenever they were out together, which often made people think they were married to each other. That and Joel telling any man who wouldn’t leave her alone not to fuck with hiswife.
“This is for the boys,” she insisted. “So, even if it’s only a year or two, I think we should go for it.”
He cradled the back of her head, tangling his fingers in her hair, and her heart beat up into her eye sockets. A couple of years ago, when the guys were leaving on their last trip out to Angola, he’d threatened to kiss her if she didn’t return his hug. So many times, she regretted not letting him.
“Don’t say things like,” his gaze shifted to the wall behind her, “that.”
