Page 85 of Just (Fake) Married
It was my resolution list.
“Nothing,” I said, and tried to swipe it out of his hands. But like a jerk, he held it out of reach.
“See, it doesn’t seem like nothing. It seems like something.”
“It’s not.”
“It’s a New Year’s Resolution list,” he said. I reached for it again, lunging across the counter only for him to hold it out of reach.
“You’re too late, honey,” he whispered with an evil grin. “I’ve read it.”
He stroked my cheek with his finger and my skin tingled like he’d brushed me with electricity.
“You got a pencil in this bag of tricks?” he asked. Not waiting for an answer, he dug through my purse, finding two pens, one pencil and a marker without a cap.
“Okay,” he said, clicking the ball point pen. “This water one is good. We should all be drinking more water. I’ll join you on that one.” He circled the first resolution.
My body made a whimpering sound of embarrassment and defeat.
“Be nicer to the McGraws. Well, I’d say you can check that off. Married to one is probably above and beyond, but you have always been kind of an overachiever.”
“Oh God,” I moaned into my hands.
“Now, you went from move out to clean out the apartment above the store. I’d say you’ve moved out, so let’s put a check there. And like the water one, I can help you with the cleaning up of the apartment.”
“I don’t need your help,” I said.
“Okay. But I can lift heavy things and that might come in handy.”
He licked the end of the pen and I buried my head in my arms, knowing what was about to happen.
“Now, this last one here is very interesting.”
“No, it’s not,” I said, but it was muffled by my arms.
“You’ve crossed out have more sex. Which is too bad.”
I remembered what I’d thought about it when I crossed it off. Like getting to the moon on a paper airplane. It was too out of reach to even consider. Only now, with him, it could be in reach, except I’d put up all these stop signs.
And now he would know that I was fighting my own desires as much as I was fighting him. All of this embarrassment was going to kill me.
“But what you replaced it with is very interesting,” he said. “More making out. Making out.” He said it a few times like he was testing out the words. Putting the emphasis on a weird syllable: “Mak-ING out. MAK-ing out. Making OUT.”
I put a pause on my own death-by-blushing to look up at him and chuckle at the funny faces he was making.
“Let me propose a new resolution,” he said, writing something on my list.
“Ethan,” I breathed.
When he looked at me his eyes were burning blue. “I don’t want to hurt you, Harmony. But I do want to fuck you.”
The words went through me like a sledge hammer and I had to grip the counter or fall right off my stool.
“We said-”
“I know what we said,” he cut me off. “But what if we made sure to keep it uncomplicated?”
Certainly, my body was in full agreement.
