Page 136 of Wingwoman
That made her freeze. Then fall back onto the couch beside me, the leather dipping beneath her. “Crap. I didn’t think of that.”
Absently, almost like she was still processing this information, she handed me her phone.
Only… her social media wasn’t open. Her text messages from Brent were.
They’d been texting today.
As in… alottoday.
Including talking about an apartment in New York.
It was the kick in the gut I needed.
Everything with me was a placeholder.
Even though it felt like things between us were shifting, becoming more intense, the fact remained, she didn’t want me… not in the long term, at least.
And at the end of all this? She’d be living in New York again.
Likely with Brent.
Clearing my throat, I set her phone down beside us and opened up her profile on mine, trying to focus on the business of this. Us. The business of our relationship.
The thought made my throat clog into a knot of emotions I had no idea how to untangle.
She had almost ten thousand followers already with only one post so far. A photo of her with Maggie, her stepmom and sisters, though everyone but Hope was out of focus in the image. Hope’s smiling face was front and center as they clinked mimosa glasses.
She looked beautiful… but there was something off about her in the photo. She looked like herself, but also not. Like she was… airbrushed.
“Did you photoshop this picture?”
Hope rolled her eyes. “Ugh, yeah. Raeanne posted it. There’s some retouching app she downloaded for me? I don’t know.”
Fucking influencers curating every aspect of their lives to look perfect was creating more insecurity than ever before. It made me want to throw my phone in the ocean and never open another app again.
“Raeanne’s an idiot. The last thing you need is a retouching app.”
She snorted a laugh. “Idiot is a little harsh, but… yeah. She actually had the nerve to ask if you would sing at my Dad’s wedding.”
I pulled in a hefty lungful of oxygen and rolled my eyes sarcastically. “Thenerve. Asking the man who’s supposed to be your boyfriend to be a part of your parents’ wedding?”
She laughed and smacked my shoulder. “Fakeboyfriend.”
Fake.
Like I needed the reminder.
If the text from Brent was a right hook, then this was like a heavyweight punch taking me down for the count.
“She doesn’t know that,” I said, my voice sounding tight. I cleared my throat and tried again. I glided my gaze down her bare thighs. A test. I needed to see her reaction to me. “Besides, it didn’t seem so fake last night.”
Grinning and completely unaware of my internal battle happening, she tucked her hair behind her ear as her face turned scarlet. Something fluttered in my chest, alive and trapped, beating rapidly like it was trying to escape.
“Are you saying youarewilling to sing at their wedding, Josh Gabriel?”
My stomach sank at her response. She deflected. She didn’t agree or say we weren’t fake last night. No response other than her blush.
“Of course I’ll sing at your dad’s wedding, Hope,” I answered. I’d do just about anything she asked of me. “As long as they don’t mind a song that’s ten years old.”
