Page 69 of The Waiting Game

“God, did we ever.” Jonah smiled.

“Hey, do you remember that pact we made when we were kids?”

Jonah glanced over, unsure of which one he meant. “I think we made like eight of them.” Jonah smiled at the memories.

“Yeah, but I meant the marriage pact.”

Jonah laughed. “Oh God.” He’d been such an intense little kid, so freaked out about losing his parents that he’d made Felix promise all sorts of weird things.

Felix pulled in a deep breath. “We should do it. Let’s get engaged.”

“What?” Jonah lifted his head to look at Felix, blinking, certain he’d heard him wrong. “What are you talking about?”

Felix smiled at him, hair all rumpled and messy and Jonah fought the urge to smooth it down. What was even happening right now?

“We should get engaged.”

Jonah opened his mouth to say something but nothing came out.

Felix’s grin widened.

“Seriously. I’ve been thinking about that comment you made recently,” Felix said. “The one about you thinking Nico and August were just faking it.”

“Huh?” Jonah finally managed.

“I was trying to figure out why anyone would fake an engagement, but probably for PR, right?”

Jonah shook his head like that would make any of this make sense. “Yeah, but … they’re … they’re totally nuts about each other.”

“Well, yeah.” Felix waved vaguely. “Clearly that wasn’t the case for the two of them. I’m just saying that it got me thinking about the reasons to do something like that. And I thought of the pact we made. And all of the chirps and speculation about our relationship. And I came up with the perfect solution to all our problems.”

“Our problems?” Jonah echoed, his ears still ringing.

“Well, look, my reputation with the public right now is pretty fucking bad, right?”

“Yeah,” Jonah agreed because that much made sense at least.

“And fans seem pretty into the idea of us together.”

“Sure but—”

“And I know it’s asking a lot of you because you run the risk of doing damage to your reputation by being with a guy who has an arrest record and a drinking problem.”

“Oh fuck that,” Jonah said scornfully. “If you think for one minute that I care about that, you don’t know me at all.”

Which was entirely beside the point but he couldn’t have Felix feeling shitty about himself.

“But even if that is a little risky, there would be benefits to you too,” Felix continued earnestly.

“Benefits?”

Dear God, if he was talking sex, Jonah was going to lose his damn mind.

“Yeah, it’ll put Grandma Ji-min’s mind at ease.”

“Oh.” Jonah blinked. He hadn’t considered that.

“I mean, we both know she’s healthy as an ox overall, but this heart thing is scary and clearly, she worries about you being alone once she’s not around.”

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