Page 27 of Marriage is a Shore Thing
“Having wings?” Van asks, a smear of orange across his right cheek. It’s dangerously close to slipping into the dimple that’s winking at me.
I abandon my previous train of thought, tossing him a napkin. “You’ve got a little something.” I point to my right cheek.
Instead of picking up the napkin, Van swipes his wing across his forehead, leaving a messy sauce trail. “Where?”
I blink, and it takes several seconds to recognize the sound coming from me as laughter. When my abs squeeze to the point of pain, I have to admit that I’m not just laughing, I’m cackling. Unattractive, noisy guffaws escape my body without respect for my mind’s futile signals to stop.It’s not even that funny, my brain protests.A toddler can smear sauce on their face.But controlling the chuckles tumbling from my body is a lost cause.
Van simply sets his chin on his palm, his smile soft. There’s no way for him to know that I don’t do this with anyone—not Noah, not Joanna, not my fledgling friends. Though, I guess Cade pulled a surprised laugh from meonce, but that’s because her chaos is—at times—genuinely entertaining.
When Van casually dots his nose with a wing, a mirthful snort shoots out of me.
“Knock it off,” I say, appalled by the sound I just made.
Van gives me that dimpled smile. “I could play dumb here and say I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I think we both know I’m irresistible.”
I groan. “There’s nothing worse than a cocky man.”
“I agree,” Van says. “But I’m not being cocky. I’m being confident—confident in my abilities to make even the surliest version of you smile.” He pauses, his grin shifting into devious territory. “Or to convince you to like pink again.”
Alarm bells ping in my skull, but I give him my bestYou’re insaneglare. I thought we dropped this topic when I walked out of the hardware store with two gray sample cans.
“I’ve never liked pink.”
“Come now. We both know that’s a lie.” The way he leans back, blatant satisfaction rolling off his shoulders makes mine tense. “You weren’t the only one that did a little internet sleuthing. Granted, mine wasn’t as official as yours, but I have it on good authority that tween Gen often chose pink as her favorite dress color when competing. In one interview, you even called it your lucky color.”
I should have thought of this. I should have accounted for the thousands of videos and photos of me from a lifetime of being in front of audiences.
“You,” he says with the smugness of someone who solves the world’s trickiest crimes, “like pink. You don’t even have to admit it, because I already know.” Van uses the edge of his last wing to tap against his temple, leaving even more sauce on his face.
I pick up the napkins and throw them at his chest. “Clean yourself up. You’re a disgrace.”
“Disgrace?” His eyebrows wrinkle adorably. “That’s weak sauce. I know you can do better.”
My head tilts with a small smirk. “I’ll never forget the first time we met, but I’ll keep trying.”
“Not bad.” His eyes practically twinkle.
Van leans over to steal a wing, but I tug my box away before his fingers dip into it. “You can’t handle this heat.”
All the jokey mischief drains from his face as he pins with me with a focused gaze. “How about you let me decide what I can handle?”
A shaky breath rattles free, but I keep my chin up, extending my wing box to him with a nonchalance I don’t feel.
Everything is too intense as Van slowly brings the wing to his lips. The sunlight is too bright, somehow sharp as it cuts across his chiseled cheekbones. The children at the nearby park seem to screech instead of giggle. Each dog bark, passing car, andchirping bird grates on my nerves, because I know how this will go—how it’s always gone.
Van takes a bite, and to his credit, he barely flinches as he chews. He’s even able to grin a bit with a semi-convincing hum of approval.
His watering eyes give him away, though.
When an unintentional tear slides down his cheek, my hand fists under the table. “Just admit you don’t like it. You like sweet and fun and easy, like everyone else.”
His steady gaze never leaves mine as he takes another bite, chewing before answering. “I like sweet things and having fun, but…” The corner of his mouth quirks, almost imperceptibly. “I’ve never liked easy. Easy is boring. Anyone can do easy. I need”—that slight tug morphs into a wicked grin that I feel down to the soles of my feet—“I need a challenge.”
We both know we’re not talking about Scoville units anymore.
I’m the first to break eye contact, which I immediately regret. I should have fought harder, stayed strong, but I can’t think straight when it’s suddenly a thousand degrees out here. I need an ice bath, and a frontal lobotomy, and a slap in the face, because I believe Van.
Which is stupid.
