Page 97 of Winning Bid

When I sit up looking around at my old apartment, it feels incomplete without him. Not that we spent all that much time here together. Technically, this was Granny’s old apartment. It always felt that way. Sort of like I was just caretaking for the place, even though I lived here for years. But it never felt like mine.

His apartment has become our apartment, but I want to find a place for the two of us. A place that we pick out together. I'm so excited to start our new life as a married couple. But today, being the last morning of my alleged freedom, I've decided to take my time getting ready.

We aren't inviting any of our friends or our family to the ceremony. Hell, who would come on a Thursday anyway? They all have work. But it's kind of perfect that way—I feel a little less guilty for not inviting anyone. Today will be just another day for everyone else. And for me, it'll be the most important day of our life, and we have it all to ourselves.

I crawl from the bed and head for the shower. My old stuff is in here. Shampoo, conditioner, soap, all that. I never bothered to cart it over to our place. Strange to see that the bottles are dusty.

As I wash my hair, I miss feeling his fingers do it for me. Anderson is startlingly good at washing my hair. But that's a part of why we decided to spend last night apart. When he washed my hair, our shower turned into something else. Without fail.

We had booked an appointment at the courthouse for four online. No chance of being on time if he had washed my hair.

Once out of the shower, the real work begins. I’m not hiring a stylist for this. That sort of defeats the purpose of keeping things as just us. Plus, it would feel like cheating since he isn’t doing anything overtly special to be prettier today.

Like he needs it. I roll my eyes at the thought, which makes me have to start over on my mascara.

It is so weird to think of Anderson as mine. He's just too handsome. Way out of my league. He always has been. I have no idea how we ended up together when I think about it. Hopefully, we'll be married fifty years before he figures that out. Pretty sure they don't grant divorces after that long. Marital law was never my thing in college, so I might have that wrong.

I consider a classic red lip that would look great in pictures, but I want to be able to kiss my husband without worrying about him wearing it too, so I opt for a nude gloss instead. In fact, I’ve kept my whole look simple.

My frizzy brown hair has somehow decided to cooperate with the smoothing products I grabbed on my way here, and my curls are doing that pretty, fresh-out-of-bed thing I’d always wished they would do. I’d splurged on the pricy stuff, and apparently, that has paid off.

On my way home last night, I picked out a dress in a boutique window. It's nothing fancy. In fact, it is pointedly minimal. A white satin A-line dress with long sleeves and a sweetheart neckline that looks demure but has a scandalous slit up the thigh. There’s something about it that makes me think if it were red or black, a Bond villainess would wear this dress. Classic, yet modern. Sexy, yet naughty. I fell for the thing the moment I saw it.

I have a pair of nude heels to not distract from the dress, and once everything is on, the butterflies go double time in my stomach. Eating feels like it’s out of the question. How does anyone do this when they’re expecting everyone they know to show up? My nerves are bad enough, and it’ll just be us.

But when I check my look in the mirror, I’m stunned. This isn’t me. This is the me I always want to be, but never bother to put the time into becoming. I look like someone who belongs on Anderson’s arm, and I’m so excited to see him I could vomit.

Okay, maybe I’m not the classy gal he deserves, but I’m the one he chose.

My stomach roils, and I realize I have to eat, so I take the dress off and throw my pajamas back on. It was too soon to be dressed and ready anyway, but I was too excited and got ahead of myself. Plus, now I know what it’ll look like when the time comes, which is a relief. I had tried the dress on at the boutique, but without the right undergarments, it looked wrong.

Padding out to my kitchen, I remember I haven’t been here in a while. What the hell do I have for food that won’t give me botulism? As it turns out, not much. Every dairy product is far past its prime, so when I?—

Ice cream.

Immediately, I throw open the freezer and dig out my stash of ice creams. Vanilla, chocolate, mint chocolate chip, and rocky road are all here to rescue me. “Hello, boys,” I purr as I pull them out. They had been my boyfriends between breakups for so very long. I’d missed them. Anderson doesn’t usually keep sweets in the house, save for his weird marshmallow protein bars he considers acceptable candy bars.

I have to work on that man.

Scooping out a healthy dollop of each makes for an oddly colored bowl of heaven that is tied together only when I drizzle chocolate syrup over the mounds. The first bite is mind-blowing utter bliss, and digging my way through the bowl as I Netflix up a horror movie brings back too many good memories.

And bad ones.

This was what I used to do when I was single and bored. Or taken and bored. In fact, it was pretty much my nightly routine unless I had someplace to be. Ice cream and horror movies go well together, but after so many years of doing it out of habit, it made me numb to the world around me. Which may have been the point.

I was so unhappy with my old life, but I’d talked myself into believing it was serviceable because I wasn’t hurting anyone, and no one was hurting me. As if that’s the standard of a good life.

Holy crap, was I depressed back then?

I set the half-empty bowl aside and turned the TV off. It was like my old life didn’t sit right with me anymore. It no longer fit who I was. The ice cream tasted good, and the horror movie was entertaining, but I wasn’t their target audience anymore.

I like the healthy food we eat at home. Okay, I hate protein bars, but if I need something sweet, I usually eat fruit, and I feel better for it. Anderson is a big baby when it comes to horror movies, but that’s probably because his real life has been horrific enough that it’s not entertaining for him and having lived with him, I get it. Seeing people shot on screen is very different after having dealt with my fiancé’s gunshot wound and recovery for months. My suspension of disbelief is another casualty of that incident.

Thanks to Anderson, I’ve changed. A lot. And I’m okay with that. In fact, I love it.

We’ve made each other better in so many ways. Aside from my own changes, he smiles more now than when we got together. It’s unguarded these days, as though he couldn’t fully smile back then, or he’d risk someone’s judgment.

Likely his father’s.

---