Page 215 of The Winslow Brothers

Personally, I’m more than okay with that sequence of events. Even if half of them threw me for one hell of a loop.

Although, it’s a bit of a dangerous game. I mean, if every time I get mad at Flynn he gifts me with an actual apology and an orgasm, I might be tempted to start making up reasons to be mad at him.

Not to mention, I’m finding that during and after sex, Flynn is far more talkative and freer with his words. Which is how I managed to get him engaging in a round of pillow talk with me in the darkness of his bedroom.

“So, that’s Ty’s thing?” I question with a raise of my eyebrow. “He just brings random women to family events?”

“Pretty much.” Flynn smirks. “And it’s never the same woman twice.”

His brother Ty is quite the character. I mean, he just went along with the possibility that I was there as his date even though he didn’t even recognize me.

“What about your dad? Why wasn’t he at family dinner?”

“My dad left when we were kids,” Flynn whispers in answer to my question about the patriarch’s absence from the gathering. He strokes his fingers softly over the small of my back while I lie naked on my belly, my head turned on its side to face him on my pillow.

“I’m sorry,” I murmur back.

“I’m not,” Flynn declares easily, his position mimicking mine and his voice quiet. “He left five rowdy kids to be raised alone by a sweet woman who didn’t deserve abandonment. I don’t need a dick for a dad just to say I have one. I have Uncle Brad and Aunt Paula and my mom and my brothers and sister, and that’s all I need.”

I want desperately to add that he has me too, that I’m in his corner and always will be, but the truth is, I don’t really know. We’re an arranged marriage, designed and executed for the sole purpose of maintaining my residence in the country. But the night in Vegas and tonight—and the phone sex too—it’s all crossed a line into territory that I can’t quite explain.

There’s passion and intimacy and interest there—I canfeelit between us—but as far as I can tell, that’s as far as any intentions go for Flynn. No matter our easy companionship or the explosive chemistry we have in the bedroom, when the clock strikes midnight on my immigration crisis, Cinderella will go back to LA again and the prince will move on with his life.

“I don’t have a dad either. Or a mom, for that matter. I grew up in the foster system in Canada.” Flynn’s fingers never stop moving on my back, but somehow it seems like the pressure of his touch changes or something. “I do have Gwen—she took me in when I was a teenager, but she’s not really a mother figure per se. She’s more of a slightly mature girlfriend.” I shrug into the soft linens of his—well,our—bed. “Nevertheless, I’m thankful for her. I don’t know where I’d be if she hadn’t made sure I got a chance to start adulthood on my feet.”

I chuckle a little as I realize how much Gwen and Flynn have in common. “And thanks to you, I don’t have a bashed-up face from my epic adulthood stumble.”

Flynn doesn’t say anything, as usual—though, hehasbeen uncharacteristically open tonight—instead tucking a piece of my loose hair behind my ear.

My eyes feel suddenly heavy, the weight of the move and the dinner and the one-bed situation leaving me in a potent exhale. I blink against the lure of sleep, eager to hear more soft secrets from my fake husband, but the pull is too strong.

I’m no match for the solace of sleep, and the next thing I know, the only thing I see is the black backs of my eyelids.

Tuesday, April 23rd

Daisy

My toes curl and my calves tighten as I stretch my arms to the ceiling and blink through the soft morning sunlight cutting through the windows and across my comforter-covered body. I roll over immediately to stretch myself in the cat cow position, and it’s only when I’m done that I realize where I am—which isnotin my LA apartment.

My groggy eyes transition quickly to alert, and I sit up in the bed, pulling the comforter up over my bare chest as I go. The room is pretty self-explanatory in its emptiness, but that doesn’t stop me from surveying the walls as though Flynn’s going to pop out of a secret Batcave behind one of them at any moment.

His empty shelves stick out like an ugly thumb, and I wonder if he’s even considered filling them with some very manly décor. Nothing fancy, just, like, a plant or two and some heavy black stoneware and maybe, like, one gold accent.

I rub at my lips with my pointer finger and my thumb as I flip through the rolodex of New York vendors in my head who I know have that kind of stuff on hand. I’m only a shelf and a half into my design plan when I shake myself awake from la-la land with a scrub of my face and a shimmy.

“Stop it, Daisy. The man doesn’t need you and your design aesthetic throwing up all over his loft.”

With an internal scoff, I push the comforter off with a toss, pausing slightly when the gust of wind from my brusque motion sends a tiny piece of notebook paper flying off the bed and onto the floor.

I hop down and scoop it up quickly, and then I read through the short-stroked, manly scroll.

Daisy-

At work.

-Flynn

Oh. Well. I mean, I guess that makes sense. Of course he has work. His life didn’t stop just because I got here.

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