Page 77 of Runaway Bride’s Husband

Maggie: You like a little danger, don’t you? Besides, you said the meeting is boring. That has to mean you smiled when I distracted you. I’m saving you from boredom. I’m basically a superhero.

I let out a soft chuckle, forgetting, unfortunately, that my microphone was still on and the entire meeting had just heard me. Shit.

“Ryan?” Colin frowned. “Do you have something you’d like to share?”

“No. It was just, uh, a funny meme that came through on my phone.”

Jane covered a smile with her hand, but Colin sighed. “Okay, well, now that you’ve seen it, would you mind rejoining the meeting so we can finish up?”

“Of course.” I put my phone face down on the desk, ignoring it for a full four seconds when it buzzed again.

Colin was watching me too closely to check the actual message that had come through, but I still bit back a smile when I saw it was another from Maggie. When the meeting finally ended, everyone disappeared from the screen in a wave of goodbyes and muted microphones, and as soon as I’d closed out the window, I reached for my phone.

Maggie: Just how boring is this meeting? I have a few ideas for distractions you might enjoy…

Maggie: Crap. You’re not reading my messages anymore. Did you get in trouble?

Maggie: Let me know when you’re done. X

Damn it. Now I really want to know what those ideas were.

I stared at the message thread for only a beat, trying to decide if we were past the point where getting a little flirty was a bad thing. Maggie sure seemed to think it was okay, and honestly, after everything else we’d done, I doubted⁠—

My thoughts got cut off when my phone started buzzing in my hand with an incoming call. Only it wasn’t Maggie this time. It was Holden.

Saved by the brother, I guess.

“What’s up?” I said as I answered and hit speaker, holding the phone in front of me and turning my chair to face the view of Manhattan stretching out in all directions. “Did Colin tell you to call?”

“No.” I heard the frown in Holden’s voice. “Why would he? What have you done now?”

I shrugged. “I might’ve zoned out a bit in a meeting. He seemed concerned.”

“Colin is always concerned, but I’m actually calling to find out if you’re free tonight. I’m back in the city and in desperate need of a drinking buddy.”

“Don’t you have many of those still hanging around after graduation?”

He made a gagging noise. “They’re all working already.”

“Imagine that,” I said dryly. “Getting a job after graduating with a degree from a prestigious university. Speaking of which, what are you doing back here?”

“Just some registration stuff,” he said vaguely. “What’s wrong with wanting to have to drink with my brother? I’m sure some of my friends would be keen, but I honestly haven’t even checked. It’s been a while since I’ve seen you, man.”

“Yeah, okay.” Three days without Maggie had done absolutely nothing to cure me of being stupid where she was concerned. I could use a distraction that hadn’t been engineered by the person I needed to stop thinking about. “I’ll meet you when I’m done at the office. Make it somewhere with decent whiskey.”

“Your standards are becoming unreasonable.” Holden sighed. “I’ve only just graduated, remember? I can’t afford decent whiskey.”

“Well, I can, and if you’d just get a job already, you would also be able to, but since I’m in an enabling mood, it’s on me.”

Holden cheered before promising to let me know where we were going. We hung up and I glanced at Maggie’s last texts again. I really needed to get my mind off her, so I went to meet Holden at some bougie bar he’d found not far from the office, but once again, knowing I had to stop thinking about her and managing to actually do it were two very different things.

Holden and I had been at the bar for less than twenty minutes before he finally looked at me over the rim of his glass and sighed. “Alright, spill. What’s going on?”

“Nothing. What makes you think there’s something going on?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe the fact that you’ve checked your phone at least a dozen times since you sat down.”

“I’m expecting an email.”