Page 65 of Dear #47, You're the Worst
Would she like it if I kissed her right now? Would she moan?
“Don’t be,” I husk out.
Eventually, the card game fizzles out. People drift toward the fire pits or the hot tubs for the evening wind-down. We stay behind, alone in the quiet media room.
I stand behind her at the window, watching the sun drop lower over the water. The view is incredible, all gold light and lavender sky, but I’m more interested in watching her reflection in the glass.
“It’s so beautiful here.” She crosses her arms, gazing out with me. “I don’t want to go back to real life.”
Neither do I. Tomorrow we’ll return to Seattle. Here, in this bubble we’ve created, things feel simple. Real.
Well, more real than they have been anyway.
I say nothing. Just slide my hand to the small of her back and leave it there, letting the warmth soak in. She doesn’t pull away, doesn’t tense up. Just leans back slightly into the contact.
We stand like that for a long time, watching the light change over the water. The silence isn’t awkward or charged with the usual tension. It’s peaceful in a way I’m not used to.
“This place is like a different world,” she breathes.
“Yeah.”
“No cameras. No reporters. There won’t even be any stupid exes making statements to the press.”
“No fake smiles or staged photos.”
She turns slightly, still within the circle of my arms. “Is this what normal people feel like?”
“I wouldn’t know. I’ve never been normal.”
That gets a small smile. “Me neither.”
I study her profile in the golden light. She looks younger here, softer. Less like the polished professional who can command a room full of executives and more like just Juliet. The woman who builds pillow walls and snores in her sleep and makes sounds during massages that drive me crazy.
“Do we have to go back?” she asks. “Can’t we live here? Just move here?”
If I’m reading the room correctly, I think she’s asking a loaded question. What happens to this thing between us when we return to our fake relationship and our real lives? What happens when the cameras are rolling again and every touch has to be calculated for maximum PR impact?
“It sounds nice,” I admit. “But I don’t know. I think the owners will probably come back eventually.”
She smiles softly as she looks down at the shore below us.
I don’t know what we are or what this is becoming. I only know that this part, the peace and the weight of her against me and the quiet way she breathes, is the kind of thing I shouldn’t get used to.
Because it’s going to end. In a few months, our contract will expire, and she’ll move on to whatever comes next in her carefully planned career. And I’ll go back to being the Chainsaw, the guy who fights more than he scores, the walking PR disaster who can’t keep his mother from selling him out to the press.
But standing here with her in the fading light, I let myself pretend for a little while longer that maybe this could be real. Maybe someone like Juliet could actually want someone like me for more than just a business arrangement.
Even if I know better.
Even if I know I’ll probably ruin it like I ruin everything else.
For now, at this moment, it’s enough to just hold her and watch the sunset over the water and pretend that tomorrow doesn’t exist.
Chapter16
Juliet
There is really horrible traffic because of construction near the waterfront, so I’m already late as I run out of the cab and into the chrome and glass-fronted restaurant. Le Bernardin, exactly the upscale but sterile restaurant my mother prefers, is busy with the lunchtime crowd. I breeze past the hostess, headed for the table that Mom always insists on in the restaurant's front right by the plate-glass window. White linen tablecloths, low classical music, no warmth anywhere to be found.
