“Spill it, McBride.”
“It’s just . . . “ How did Marti say it without giving too much away?
Now that feelings were involved, maybe they should call it quits?
She was already feeling attached. How much more would it hurt weeks from now when this ended?
Oh, and by the way, she agreed to this in the first place because her boss gave her an ultimatum. It was all a ruse for her, too.
But now her feelings were real. At least, she thought they were. She wasn’t even sure because she’d never felt like this.
“So, this wedding and my charity . . . I’ve been thinking . . .” Logan started, and she took this opening for what it was, a gift.
Man, she was a coward.
“I was thinking maybe we could postpone our breakup,” he said, sliding his arm off her shoulder and enveloping her hand in his. “Just let things run their course for a while, you know. I hate to disappoint all those avid fans of yours.”
His eyes locked on hers, and she knew what he was really asking for—not just an extension, but a real shot at this, them.
“I don’t know,” she answered because it was so much easier to play dumb than to choose from the side of her brain that screamed at her, none of this is real, while the other half rejoiced.
Slowly, he threaded his fingers through hers and shifted their joined hands to rest on his stomach. The back of her hand burned the cotton of his shirt. “Are you glad I came?”
“I was going crazy with boredom, and I missed you,” Marti said, mustering her courage. “Purely from a professional standpoint, of course,” she added because, baby steps.
“Of course.” He grinned and his eyes crinkled.
She shifted closer, closing the gap between them, practically sitting on his lap until she could smell the musky scent of his cologne combined with the laundry detergent he used.
She reached out with her free hand and ran a finger over the scruff of his jaw. “Do you ever shave completely?”
“Rarely. My five o’clock shadow is pretty heavy, so it just seems easier to keep it.”
She murmured her approval, taking in the exact shade of green of his eyes, and she realized she had been wrong. They weren’t green like emeralds because they faded to blue—a brilliant shade of turquoise—right in the middle. She wondered how she’d never noticed before.
“So did you have any more run-ins with Allison?” she asked, grimacing as she did. Apparently, jealousy wasn’t beneath her.
“No.” His thumb stroked lazy circles over the back of her hand. “What about you? Any guys try to pick you up while I was away?”
“Fat chance of that.” She laughed and thought of what Blue said, about not screwing things up.
“There’s this new restaurant opening up tomorrow night. The one on 51st? They’re placing some major ads with the digital site, and my boss wants me to check it out so I can name drop in my column. You game?”
“Absolutely.”
She repressed her smile, staring down at their clasped hands.
“What made you get into writing?” he asked, surprising her with the shift in conversation.
Her eyes locked with his, and she straightened. Weirdly enough, no one had ever asked her that question. It seemed like something a lot of people would want to know about her. The fact he cared, made her want to tell him.
“After my dad left, I started writing. In my journal mostly.” She turned her eyes to the throw blanket on the couch and slid it over her legs, needing something to do with her hands. “Then my senior year, I entered a couple of my poems in this competition, and I won first place. It was, I don’t know . . .” She searched for the words. “Kind of this proud moment for me. Like maybe I was better at something than most, which sounds terrible when I say it out loud.”
He squeezed her hand. “It doesn’t sound terrible.”
“And then I went on to college and joined the student paper. We kind of became this nerdy little team. But I loved it. That feeling you get when people read your words and listen to what you have to say, it’s addicting. I majored in journalism and creative writing and never looked back.”
“And you still love it?”