Page 92 of Lucky Puck

He whispers into my hair. “You know your idea was brilliant and that you’ve made me—all of us—a shitload of money in sponsorship contracts and promotional gigs.” He takes a deep breath like he’s taking in my scent, and I feel my knees weaken. “I’m so lucky that my biggest problem is jealous teammates.”

I push back from him and look up into his eyes. “There’s a problem with your teammates?”

His smile is genuine and his eyes crease at the corners, but I don’t miss the shadow of sadness. “Nah, mostly it’s just the same old problem with the same old Windy. Ax is handling him for me, running interference. By the way, after our road trip and the fashion show, he wants to come over for pizza, and I didn’t have the heart to turn him down. I hope you don’t mind.”

“No. No problem. It’ll be fun. No rule saying we can’t have a little fun, right? Maybe we can even tell Ax what’s going on since he technically knows this is all a sham.”

Brody’s eyes go dark. “I don’t know if I’m ready for that, Brooks. We need to work out the timing.”

“How about after the fashion show?” I don’t know what makes me say it, but the sense of urgency to get away from him is stronger than my desire to stay and let myself fall. Guess that means I don’t want to commit Cupid suicide and fall on the arrow that will break my heart.

It’s a smart choice, I insist as my gut churns and I try to tamp down the urge to hurl my lunch.

“The fashion show is Saturday. You think it’s wise to blow this up so soon?”

“It won’t be an explosion. We’ll spin it as the natural conclusion to a Vegas wedding.” My heart pummels my chest wall like it’s angry with me.

“Something smells good.” He looks in the direction of the stove.

“Instead of calling for take-out, I made dinner. I hope you’re okay with that. It’s not because I’m trying to be domestic; it’s more to keep me distracted. Although it does feel domestic, like I’m still playing house or something, but I’m not⁠—”

“It’s okay, Brooks.”

“Since you’ll be leaving for your road trip first thing in the morning, I thought we should talk about the details anyway. I was thinking, maybe we can use Nora as our reason for a breakup? We can stage a scene or something at the fashion show. It makes sense. Our last blow-up confrontation is all over social media, so people will buy it. Would that be a problem for you?”

His face is a mask, a cold one, and he’s silent so long I’m afraid I’ve lost everything—even his respect—and I may need to move out tomorrow.

“You want me to pretend to be interested in Nora?” His words are rough and pained.

“No, no. I’m sorry—I would never. I meant that she could be encouraged to throw herself at you again and I could act like the jealous wife again, and you could rightly insist that there’s nothing going on, and I could be the overreacting bitch housewife⁠—”

His mouth quirks up in one corner. “You had me until the bitch part, not to mention the housewife act. No one would believe that part.”

“I’ll give it my best shot, and you can award me the statue later.”

He smiles then, and it’s almost like his real smile except without the enthusiasm or energy or real carefree charm that it used to have, and I’m responsible for that.

“I’m sorry. I really am. I don’t much like this mess either.”

“No. I’m sure you don’t. But it’s better than the alternative of having someone call us out as a couple of fakes.”

“That’s for sure.” I’m relieved he didn’t say the horrible alternative was ending up married to me forever. Not that that was ever a possibility.

I should be relieved for the break in the tension. But, heck, I’ll miss him far more than I should. I’ll miss his presence, his smile, that dimple, his energy, the sight of his hunky body, and that connection we have—which is all terrible for me, like poison. Why can’t I get it through my head that our relationship is like poison?

Because it’s not my head that’s the problem, that’s why.

“So it’s a plan then.”

He says nothing and goes to the refrigerator and pulls out a bottle of beer. “You want one?”

I shake my head. He takes a long pull as if he needs fortification before returning to sit at the island. Making a space among the forgotten wedding gifts, he puts his bottle down.

“You said there was dinner.”

“It’s no big deal. I was going with the team’s family night tradition that the girls told me about. I had lunch today with Delaney and Cherry. Kat showed up and we⁠—“

He puts a finger against my mouth to quiet me, and I know he’s not interested in doing any more pretending, not even pretending that everything is fine between us, that we’re okay with our pretend divorce and the end of whatever we have.