“Okay…so, what’s our story?” she asks. “How’d we meet? Because they’ll all think you’re batshit crazy if you tell them we met and got engaged in the span of four days.”
“That’s easy. We met at Nick’s party, which is true. Fell madly in lust, also true.
“Maybe for you.”
I choose to ignore that remark. “We’ve been secretly dating since. Lust quickly evolved into love, and we got engaged…a little foretelling. Not exactly a lie.”
She glares at me, then purses her lips and nods. “It could work.”
“It will,” I assure her as the driver pulls around a strip mall, parking in the back near the dumpster. And honestly, I don’t know whether I’m referring to the lie…or hoping it’ll become our truth.
“Boy this place is a dump,” she observes, climbing out of the door behind me with her nose pinched. “You sure know how to treat a girl in style.”
“Come on, brat.” I wrap an arm around her shoulders, pulling her close and plant a kiss on the top of her head. With her body firmly plastered to my side, I guide her over to the third door from the left and knock, just like Anika instructed.
Speaking of the pint-sized dictator, she’s quite pissed with me right now over this whole engagement fiasco, as she called it, and having to push back recording again. I do sign her paychecks, so however begrudgingly, she’s still managing my life from afar. But you better believe she’s making her feelings on the matter known every chance she gets.
“Mr. Taylor.” A balding older man with round spectacles and a cheery disposition pulls the door open with a nod. “Miss Potter. We’ve been expecting you. My name’s Todd. I’m the day manager, and I’ll be seeing to your needs personally.”
I reach for Korie’s hand, linking my fingers with hers and give it a reassuring squeeze. I can tell by the slight furrow of her brow that she still has no clue where we are.
“Right this way.”
We’re led to a private table in the manager’s office at Sundae Fun Days. It’s nothing fancy: a four-seater with a red and white checkered table cloth set up in front of an executive style desk. In the center is a huge array of toppings so we can dress our own dessert.
Korie is all smiles when I pull out her chair. “A little bird told me you had a thing for ice cream.”
Her grin widens. “You research well. It’s my favorite meal.”
Before my butt is in my seat, a heaping bowl of vanilla ice cream is placed in front of us.
“Syrup?” Todd asks, balancing a tray of bottles that seems to have appeared out of thin air in one hand. “We have fudge, caramel, strawberry, cherry, pineapple, or raspberry.”
“She’s the boss.” I nod to my left at Stick.
“We have to share?” She looks absolutely appalled.
“What? Not big enough?” I rest my forearms on the table and gawk at her. There’s no way the two of us will finish this thing off before it melts, much less each our own.
“No. I just—I have this thing about eating after people.”
“Seriously? You had my dick all up in your mouth last night, and you can’t eat from the same bowl as me today?”
Todd’s face turns beet red, but he doesn’t waiver, his expression a blank slate as he calmly awaits instruction.
“Oh my God. I can’t believe you just said that in front of this poor guy. I’m sorry about my boyfriend, Todd.” She stammers on the word boyfriend, like it tastes sour on her tongue, and it bothers me a hell of a lot more than it should. Because I want this to be real, and I want her to be proud.
“Fiancé,” I quickly correct, to which I’m rewarded with a glare.
“Can I at least have my own spoon?”
“Duh. I’m not putting my mouth on something that’s been inside yours. How disgusting.” I cringe, grab at my throat and gag theatrically as Todd reaches onto the tray, retrieving two shiny spoons, fanning one in each of our directions.
“There you are,” he offers with a smile. “Would you like me to get you another bowl? It’s really not a problem.”
“No, thank you.” Korie’s flushed from her cheeks to her chest. “We’ll have fudge, please.”
“I’ll let you know if we need anything else.” I say, dismissing him as he’s finishing up with the chocolate sauce.
Korie’s lips twist to the side as she assesses the collection of candy, nuts, and fruits. She’s putting a whole lot of thought into how to top this mountain of sugar. “Do you like gummy bears?”
“I’m a man.” I shrug, thinking that’s all the answer she needs, but she looks at me cock-eyed, so I elaborate. “I’ll eat anything. Go ahead and dress it however you want.”
She grabs a handful, sprinkling them generously over the top. Then she adds a few cherries and strawberries before double checking to be sure I don’t want to add anything else. Finally, she finishes it off with a blob of whipped cream and rainbow sprinkles, and we dig in. I make sure to keep to my side, as to not disgust her any further. Just as I suspected, we don’t make it through even half of the concoction.
“You ready to get out of here?” I ask when she returns from a trip to the restroom.
Korie shakes her head, slinking back into her chair. “Let’s play a game,” she proposes with a gleam in her eyes. “No sense in wasting all of this.”
“What kind of game?” Immediately I’m skeptical, but more curious to see where this is going. She looks like the fucking cat who ate the canary.
“Mystery toppings.” She retrieves a strip of black fabric from her back pocket and waves it around in the air. “Just borrowed this blindfold from our friend, Todd.”
“Ladies first,” I insist, holding out my hand for the blindfold, which turns out to be a cloth napkin. It’s just barely long enough, but it’ll do the trick.
“No peeking,” she orders as I secure it around my eyes.
Naturally, I try to listen to figure out what’s going on, because I don’t completely trust her. But other than a slight clinking, the only sound is the air conditioner.
“Open up.”
Here goes nothing. I close my mouth around the spoon, moaning as if it’s the best thing I’ve ever tasted. It’s more candy than ice cream. I suck the cream off the toppings, rolling them around my tongue to decipher what I’m eating. “M&M’s,” I mumble when I crunch down on the tiny disk of chocolate. That one was easy. “Cherry.”
“Mmmhmm,” she says. “What else?”
“Something really hard and sour…” I’m not big on sweets. This date is purely for Stick’s benefit, so this isn’t as easy for me as it would be for most people. “I give up. I have no clue.”
“It was Nerds,” she says, snatching the blindfold from around my head and tightening it to fit hers. “You go.”
“Give me a minute…” I study the options for a moment before placing a pecan, blueberry, and raspberry on the spoon. She obviously has a sweet tooth. So, I figure I’m better off with fruits and nuts if I’m to have any shot at tripping her up.
“Ugh,” she groans, chewing with her nose all scrunched. “Blueberry, gross.”
“Yeah…” Damnit.
“Pecan and raspberry.” She beams, uncovering her eyes. “I’m right, aren’t I? Point for me!”
“Yep. Go again.”
She walks around the table and ties the napkin over my eyes herself this time. I’m not sure where the distrust is coming from. I didn’t even get them all right last round, so I obviously wasn’t cheating, but it’s her game, and I play along.
“Can’t see anything,” I say when I feel her hand waving around in front of my face.
“Just making sure…”
I don’t know what the hell is going on, but I swear I hear her smothering a laugh. “What’s taking so long?”
“Almost done,” she promises.
Finally, I feel the spoon tap against my lower lip and open.
“Bigger,” she says, with a giggle. Against my better judgment, because I just know this
girl is up to something, I open my mouth wider. She shoves a heaping pile of ice cream into my mouth, so much I almost can’t close my lips around it.
Cautiously I bite down and feel a crunch. My very first thought is that she’s gone and fed me a fucking bug, but then my tongue starts to burn and my entire mouth catches fire.
“Ugh!” I yell, spitting it out right onto the table, before wrenching the cloth from my face. “Jalapenos!”
She nearly falls out of her seat she’s laughing so damn hard, while I shovel spoonful after spoonful of vanilla ice cream into my mouth to douse the flames.
“I’m a man. I’ll eat anything,” she mocks, throwing my earlier words in my face. “Some man.”
“You fight dirty.” Despite the sweat pouring from my eyes, because these are not tears y’all, and the coughing fit that won’t seem to end, I can’t help but laugh at my own expense. Call me impressed.
“Oh, Mr. Taylor, you have no idea…”
Chapter 19
Korie
He won’t tell me where we’re headed next, and I believe we’ve already established that I’m not the most patient of people. I can’t believe I’m actually ditching drinks with my classmates at the pub tonight to go along with whatever Rhett has planned. My life has become a whirlwind of surprises since the moment I woke up yesterday morning. I feel upside down and turned inside out. I’m a person who likes order. Reliability. All of the things I never had growing up.
“What are we doing here?” I ask when the truck starts down a familiar back road.
Rhett pulls up Instagram on his cell, doing that thing he’s been doing where he pretends he didn’t just hear me speak. “Here. Type in your handle so I can follow you.”
“Handle?” I snort laugh. “You sound like an old truck driver.” With an eyeroll, I take the phone from his hand, typing in my username, Korie_Sk8tes, and try not to shiver as he breathes over my shoulder.
“Cute. A hundred and fifty-eight fans.” He sounds anything but impressed. “Now follow me back.”
Sighing, I retrieve my own phone from my pocket. “Pushy. Pushy.” With a tsk, I do as he instructs. “Look at you all official with your blue checkmark,” I tease before taking notice of his fifty-five million fans and darkening the screen. I’m so out of my element. But this is why we’re doing this. I need him—him and fifty million of his devoted fans. “There, happy now?”
“Not yet, but we’re getting there.” He reaches for the door handle, throwing it open. “Let’s go.”
“Go where?” I slide across the leather seat, scrambling to keep up as he exits the car and continues around to the hatch.
“I want you to teach me to ride.”
Something about this moment…that gleam in his turquoise eyes…the sincerity in his raspy tone has my stomach doing summersaults. “You’re serious?” Red flags start waving around in my head.
This isn’t supposed to happen. Do not start falling for him, Korie. Keep your head in the game and your eyes on the prize—the games…not Rhett. He is not the prize. Nope.
“ ’Course I am. Told you I wanted to know what you were passionate about…and not just in the bedroom,” he adds, tucking a finger beneath my chin and tilting my face up to his. “You’ve seen me do my thing. Now, I wanna see you do yours.”
“I don’t, umm,” I cough. “I don’t have my board.” I don’t know why I’m suddenly feeling shy. I know I’m good enough. Somehow it feels intimate, sharing this with him, alone in the park. This is where I come to unwind, by myself. I don’t want to get close to him, but despite my better judgment, I feel it happening with every moment spent in his company.
The back of the SUV pops open and there it is, along with Raven’s, which I’m assuming he brought along for himself.
“You really planned this thing out,” I ponder aloud, impressed by how simple yet personal our first official fake date is turning out to be.
“Raven helped a little,” he admits, retrieving our equipment.
“What’s in the bag?”
Shame colors his cheeks. “Anika bitched a fit until I agreed to use protection.”
Sucking in my lips, I bite down hard trying not to howl with laughter when he opens the duffle to reveal a black helmet with a mohawk across the top, along with knee and elbow pads. “Cute,” I spit out, unable to contain my hysterics.
“Laugh it up, Stick. Can’t go breakin’ the cash cow.” Although he’s smiling when he says it, I sense his underlying resentment and find myself apologizing. I’m not even sure why, because I’m not the one using him for his money…or am I? I’m totally taking advantage by allowing him to use his position for my own personal gain. Guilt swarms in my chest and I’m beginning to feel sick and ready to call this whole thing off.
“Don’t,” he says, pulling one more item from the bag. It’s a pair of black Converse. My staple. The proud grin on his face has me melting into a puddle of swoon. Why does he have to be so freaking adorable? “Don’t apologize just yet, cuz yours is in here.” He grabs a purple Under Armour bag from the back and unzips it.
“No freaking way,” I scoff when he tries to hand me a Trolls helmet, complete with pink, fluffy hair.
“You don’t like Poppy?” he asks, in mock horror. “ ’Cuz that could be a deal breaker.”
“What’s a Poppy?”
“Don’t you know anything?” he asks, jamming the helmet onto my head and adjusting the plastic straps beneath my chin. His fingers are rough, calloused from years of strumming the guitar. When they brush over my smooth skin, I break out in goosebumps, reminded of all the places they explored when we were fooling around last night. “She’s the pink haired one…the princess, and only the most important troll.” His eyes roll up dramatically. “No big deal.”
I bite back another laugh. “You’re awful passionate about a kid’s show.”
“It’s my niece Autumn’s favorite, and you’ll score major points with her by wearing it.”
He has a niece. One he seems pretty smitten with at that. How sad is it that I’ve never even considered the fact that he has a family? That he’s more than this crazy hot, famous, well endow—
“Hey,” Rhett says, resting a hand on my shoulder. “Still with me?”
“Oh!” I startle, snapping my head up from where it’s wandered to his crotch. “Yeah, sorry.”
After fastening his own helmet into place, he opens up to the camera on his phone. “Let’s send her a picture. She’s gonna love it.”
“Who could say no to this face?” I pinch his scruffy cheeks between my fingers and squeeze, feeling my heartrate escalate.
“Just about no one.”
And I one hundred percent believe it.
Rhett’s long, toned arm stretches out, holding the phone so we’re both in the frame. “Smile pretty for Princess Autumn!” He pulls me tighter with his free arm, so close I can smell the jalapeno pepper lingering on his breath.
Now, make no mistake, Rhett Taylor is a beautiful man in any situation. But Rhett Taylor beaming at the camera for his baby niece is something altogether sinful. I shouldn’t be this turned on. Not by him. And certainly not while taking a picture for a toddler, but I am. Warmth radiates from my every pore as I stare back at our reflections in the glass.
“There,” he says, taking a moment to fire off a message to his sister. “Let’s get down to business.”
Rhett follows me over to the flat section, where I drop my board and motion for him to do the same. “Let’s see whatcha got.”
He lowers his to his feet awkwardly and within thirty seconds of taking off, is flat on his ass. “I think I may need help.”
“You have to start with your front foot on the board. You led off with your back one. It’s harder to get on that way…. Front foot on the board. Push with your back foot and turn them perpendicular once you have them both on. Try it again.”
“This is harder than it looks,” Rhett complains when he loses his balance once more.
“It’s like anything else…just takes practice.”
I walk over to where he’s splayed on the ground with his arms raised in the air, helping him back up. “Get back on and hold on to my shoulders till you get the hang of it.”
Rhett slides his fingers beneath my hair, cupping my shoulders, and suddenly I’m short of breath. “Like this?” he asks, kneading the stiffness away with expert skill.
“Mmhmm,” I murmur, rolling my neck. I swear those hands of his are pure magic.
“Shouldn’t your eyes be open?”
“Probably,” I say, while trying my damnedest not to purr.
Before I realize what’s happening, his hands are at my waist, and he’s spinning me around and lifting me onto the board to stand in front of him, my feet in the center between his—the front of his body pressed intimately to my back. “How ‘bout a lesson in balance?”
The warmth of his breath on my ear causes my entire being to tremble. “Oh—okay,” I agree, as he slides one of his hands along my torso, stopping just beneath my breasts. Pretty sure I’d agree to just about anything at this moment. His back foot drops to the ground, and he pushes off. Our knees bend together in sync like we were made to fit, and we lean into the motion, gliding across the cement.
“You played me,” I accuse, catching his cocky smirk when I glance back at him over my shoulder.
He flashes his pearly whites, pumping his foot faster to gain speed. “Can’t do any tricks,” he admits. “But I was a teenaged boy once upon a time.”
“You mean you weren’t always a Hollywood heartbreaker?”
“I’ll have you know, you’re lookin’ at the former stud of Oak Bend Trailer Park,” he huffs just as we lose our footing and topple to the ground. I forgot he grew up there with Nick. We’re cousins on my father’s side but never once visited their home, mostly cuz Dad was rarely around. And when he was, he certainly wouldn’t have been caught at Oak Bend Trailer Park. Who’d have thought that a rowdy bunch of boys from the wrong side of the tracks would end up where they are today?
“I can’t picture you as anything but famous,” I admit, rolling over onto my back to lie beside him and stare up at the clouds. “What were you like as a kid?”
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