She looks intrigued at that. Or at least she doesn’t immediately tell me to go to hell.
“What if we give Trevor and Helen something real to talk about?”
Her brows are drawn close together in confusion. “What do you mean?”
“When’s the wedding?” I ask her.
She thinks about it a minute. “Three weeks—like a week and a half after school ends.”
“Where?”
“Portland. Where Helen’s from.”
“So you have to get a hotel room.”
“Yup.”
“Is Madden going?”
She sighs. “This is a bone of contention between me and Trevor. I just think it’s wrong. I mean, who doesn’t invite their eight-year-old son to their wedding?”
I scrub my face irritably with my palm. “Do you think he researches all the ways to be a dick?”
She grimaces. “On the other hand, I’m sort of glad, you know? Because it would be so weird for me. To watch my son watch his father get married again. And it’s a nighttime wedding, at a super-fancy location. So he’s staying with my parents.”
I am already picturing Elle dressed for a “super-fancy” location, and liking the image it brings to mind. “So here’s my thinking. Maybe we leave the boys with their respective grandparents, go to the wedding, and since Trevor thinks we’re sleeping together anyway, for that one day—and night—we will be. But just that one day and night. Then we’re done.”
She bites into that plump lower lip. I work hard to resist the urge to bend over and lick the bitten spot. I will exercise restraint now to get what I want later.
“One time? Or one night?” she asks finally.
I take that as an excellent sign.
“Which do you want it to be?”
She thinks about that for a long time—another promising sign. Finally she says, “One time would be neater. But one night would be—” She eyes me, a head-to-toe appraisal. My dick stirs. Of course, he thinks it’s all about him. And to be fair, her eyes do snag for a moment on my fly before her gaze comes up again to find mine. “One night maybe would be better for getting it out of our systems.”
One night would definitely give me more time to work through the variations I pictured lying in bed that first night…
“One night it is,” I say.
“But that’s it. No kissing before then, and once the night’s over, nothing else.”
I extend my hand and we shake on it.