Page 83 of Wrapped with a Beau

She looks around the apartment. Everything here is just so damn nice. White taper candlesticks in brass holders gently billow with flame. The Instagrammable square plates and the garland draped from one end of the dining table to the other add a bit of rustic charm to the otherwise modern place settings.

Arun and Cade aren’t more than a few years older than her, and their lives are already so damn together. They have a mortgage and a marriage and maybe even a five-year plan? No, they probably have a twenty-five-year plan, that’s how adult they are. They aren’t back home living with their parents and making no-strings-attached deals with guys. She wonders if Cade would still think she was so good for Ves if he knew the truth.

“Hey, you good?” Ves is suddenly at her side, peering at her from under those lush dark brows with concern.

She forces herself to smile. “Yeah, why?”

“No reason,” he says slowly. His eyes zigzag all over her face. “You just looked pensive for a moment and I...” He runs his hand over her ear like a lock of her wavy hair has come loose from the pearl barrette. But she knows it hasn’t, which means he just wants to touch her. “I was worried,” he concludes. “I don’t want you to feel left out.”

“I don’t! Oh my god, Arun and Cade are so nice. The best.” She reaches for his hand and takes it in both of hers. He immediately slides his fingers in between hers, interlocking them. It’s cute and it makes her want to kiss him, but before she can get on her tiptoes and tilt her chin up, a petite blond-haired woman pops up at Ves’s side, wearing an anime shirt and a striped beanie in the pink-blue-white trans flag colors.

“Hey, you must be Elisha!” She sticks out her hand. “I’m Hero Crane.”

Elisha frees her hand from Ves’s grip with an apologetic smile. “Hi, it’s nice to meet you.”

“Hero and I did the same English degree at NYU,” explains Ves. He reclaims Elisha’s hand as soon as possible. “She gave me some of the best critiques I’ve ever received. We stayed in touch after undergrad and I ended up referring her to Arun.”

“And now he represents both of us!” Hero beams. “Hey, maybe you can convince this guy to finally co-author a graphic novel with me?” She nudges Ves with her elbow. He doesn’t budge an inch but lets her poke at him with the kind of indulgent smile he only gives to people he likes.

“Our professor had an ax to grind about graphic novels, so this has become Hero’s white whale,” says Ves, making a face. “Hero’s idea is great, and she definitely doesn’t need me to write it. Plus I’m only stick-figure qualified at drawing, so...”

“I’ll do all the art and at this point you know it as well as I do,” Hero argues. “And it’s right up your alley. Magic? Adventures? Zero parental supervision?”

“Hero!” cries Arun. “You must try one of these pesto bites. They’re divine.” When she’s distracted, Arun knowingly mouths at Ves: You should do it.

“You’re reluctant?” Elisha asks, watching Ves play with her hands, twisting the stacked silver rings on her index finger. She can’t figure out whether he’s truly distracted or simply stalling for time.

“It’s just... it’s a commitment.” He doesn’t look up. “Arun loves the idea as well, but starting to write a book with a friend feels like a good way to not have that friend anymore. It’s not worth losing someone over.”

“Doesn’t seem like she feels the same way.”

When he sighs, she’s afraid she’s overstepped.

“Putting myself out there never ends well, Elisha,” he says quietly. “Arun is terminally hopeful on my behalf, but people like you and him don’t understand. Can’t understand.”

“Can’t understand what?”

“People who are so loved by everyone can’t understand what it’s like for people who aren’t.”

She hates the way he says it, as if he’s resigned that this is how it’s always been and will always be. She wants nothing more than to prove to him just how untrue it is. Flabbergasted, she lets him lead her to the dining table, where she’s squeezed between him and Arun.

The guests don’t waste any time digging in, even though Cade jokingly bemoans that the food that took him hours to cook will be devoured in under one. He catches Elisha’s eye and winks.

But she can’t smile back. Because after one bite, she knows one thing that is irrevocably, incontrovertibly true, even if she isn’t ready to say it. She’s done the silliest thing she could do with Ves Hollins, Christmas Curmudgeon, Toast of Trivia, and Small-Town Girl Rescuer: fallen in love with him.

Chapter Forty-One

Elisha

How long have you been up?” Ves’s voice is sleep-roughened and the sound of it goes straight between Elisha’s legs. How does someone so pretty have a voice like sexy gravel? He angles his body to better hold her, chest rising and falling in an enormous yawn.

Shivering against him, she presses herself even closer, until her lips skate across his jaw and up behind his ear. She can smell herself on his skin, sugar cookie crossed with his green apple body wash.

She’s very much a morning person, and it’s usually a struggle to stay in bed after she’s woken up, but for him, she tries. Surprisingly, he’s a cuddler. Even in sleep he wraps himself around her tight, and it’s no different now. His bed is cozy, the blankets warm with their shared heat, but she imagines it will be a different story during summer’s sweltering humidity.

Except... they won’t be sleeping in the same bed by the time summer comes. The valuation experts are scheduled to come the first week of January, Damian will close on the house and head back to Piney Peaks to film only a week after that, and Ves will be...

Here, in these gray silk sheets, maybe spooning some other girl to sleep at night. At least for a few weeks, and then it’ll be someone else. Because he doesn’t do serious.

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