Blame it on the Vodka (Blame it on the Alcohol)

Forcing my jaw shut, I took a breath and a long blink, shoving aside my shock and bringing out the playful man she needed. “I’ll let you drop this for now,” I said with a tip of my lips. “Only because I have a meeting to prep for tonight. But later…” I looked her up and down. “I have ways of extracting information, Miss Vos.”

Her eyes lit with a playful challenge. “We’ll see.”

I gave her one last perusing look before fully shifting away from the subject. “Thank you for this weekend.”

“Of course,” she said easily, taking my lead. “Ethel and I are best friends now. And I’m always here for anything you need.”

“Anything?” I asked, raising my brow slowly.

“Anything.”

“Hmmm…” I pursed my lips and scrambled back for any ideas I might have had earlier in the drive to convince her to not run to the nearest lawyer. We’d spent two weeks together being a married couple—but in reality, it felt the same as spending two weeks with my friend.

That I now slept with.

But it was also the same, and maybe that was what she needed to see while we were home, in our city. Our marriage lacked a day-to-day example. Hell, even the week between the weekends had been us locked in her apartment fucking like rabbits.

That wasn’t the life Rae lived. Rae went out as much as she stayed in, and I needed to show her the other side—but show that side with me as her husband.

“How about you let me take you out?”

“Ooooo. Like on a date?”

“Yeah. Like a date.”

“So, basically what we do all the time,” she joked, grabbing her purse before getting out.

She wasn’t wrong. Before Bodie, I’d been her date to almost every event. We’d gone to dinners and bars and everywhere in between. But she was missing one crucial detail that made it very, very different.

“Except this time, you’re my wife.”

The word hung between us, and I waited for her to react.

As expected, she rolled her eyes and opened the door.

Unexpectedly, she’d had to bite her lip to hold back her smile and looked away to hide her blush. She tried to hide what the word did to her. While I had no intention of pushing her to admit her past, I had no qualms about eventually pushing her to admit how much she truly liked being my wife.

She bent down to look in the car once the doorman had her bags. “Send me the details, and I’ll be there.”

“I can’t wait to have dinner with my wife,” I said, just to watch her blush all over again.

I stayed to watch her walk in the building before pulling away. The plans I struggled to create during the drive came together perfectly now. I’d take her on a romantic date. I’d wine and dine her like she deserved. And at the end of the night, I’d lay it all out—the perfect timeline. I wouldn’t rush her—I’d only ask for a chance.

I had to at least try.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Raelynn

“Shit,” I hissed.

“Truth Hurts” blared, startling me so much I jerked, smudging mascara against my perfectly done brow. I glared at the offending mark because how dare it be there when it knew how hard it was to get two matching brows.

Lizzo started singing, and I turned my glare to the phone, almost grinding my teeth to dust, when I saw Bodie’s name across the screen.

“You motherfucker,” I growled.

He’d messaged me almost every other damn day since I got back from Vegas. And once the photos appeared of Austin and me in the Hamptons, his messages increased from one to two easily ignored comments to ten texts and phone calls.

Between the smudged makeup and the anger that had been brewing all week long, I was done with pretending they weren’t there. I’d been done with him for longer than when I kicked his ass to the curb for good, but somehow, he hadn’t gotten the message.

Time to make sure he did.

“If you don’t stop fucking calling me, I’m going to rip your balls off and give them to the filthiest homeless man with the most STDs.”

“Raelynn—baby. I’ve missed your voice.”

I almost snort-laughed at his polite greeting that sounded like it came from between gritted teeth.

“What do you want, Bodie?” I asked, in the most bored tone I could give.

“I’ve missed you.”

My face scrunched over a silent ew. I pulled the phone away and made sure it was actually Bodie that called.

“Maybe we can do dinner?” he suggested when I didn’t respond.

“Hell, no.”

“C’mon,” he coaxed, again through what sounded like a clenched jaw. “Maybe one of your family dinners, so we can be on neutral ground to talk.”

No, this was definitely Bodie—the man who downplayed every outburst or lash of anger. The fact that he called my family dinners a neutral place let me know nothing had changed—not that I thought they had. I couldn’t count the times he’d smacked my thigh under the table or squeezed my arm too hard because I wasn’t speaking up for him like he thought I should—or joked about our relationship that he didn’t find funny. Or the times he’d been so angry by my lack of expressed devotion that he couldn’t even wait until we got home and ended up cornering me in the foyer before we left.